Victor Meyer

Victor Meyer at the ETH Zurich

Victor Meyer (also Viktor ; born September 8, 1848 in Pankow ; † August 8, 1897 in Heidelberg ) was a German chemist .

Life

Grave of Victor Meyer, his wife Hedwig, b. Davidson and their daughter, who died young, at the Heidelberg mountain cemetery

Victor Meyer studied chemistry in Heidelberg and Berlin . In 1871 he was appointed full professor of organic chemistry at the University of Stuttgart . In 1872 he went to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich as the successor to Johannes Wislicenus . In 1885 he followed Hans Huebner's appointment at the University of Göttingen and finally in 1889, as the successor to Robert Wilhelm Bunsen , at the University of Heidelberg .

He was married to Hedwig Davidson (1851-1936) and had five daughters with her, including the writer Hilde Stieler . In his later years Meyer was more frequently afflicted by depression and committed suicide during such episode suicide . His tomb, a granite menhir , has a relief plate with his profile. Below is the name of his wife. The small armchair at the foot of the boulder is dedicated to their daughter, who died at the age of seven.

Act

Victor Meyer is best known today for the method named after him for determining the molar mass of volatile compounds using the Victor Meyer apparatus from 1878. He discovered the organic nitro compounds , thiophene, and was the first to describe mustard gas (S- mustard ). The Victor Meyer reaction is named after him.

Honors

In 1882 Meyer was elected a member of the Leopoldina . He was a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences since 1885 and an external member since 1889 . In 1892 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1897 to the board of the German Chemical Society in Berlin. From 1896 he was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

Works

• with Frederick Pearson Treadwell : Qualitative Analysis Tables. Printed by Heinrich Zürcher, Hottingen-Zürich 1882.
• with Carl Langer : Pyrochemical investigations. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1885.
• The thiophene group. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1888.
• Chemical problems of the present. Lecture given at the first general meeting of the 62nd meeting of German naturalists and physicians on September 18, 1889 in Heidelberg. Winter, Heidelberg 1889.
• Results and goals of stereochemical research. Lecture given at the meeting of the German Chemical Society in Berlin on January 28, 1890. Winter, Heidelberg 1890.
• with Paul Heinrich Jacobson : Textbook of organic chemistry. Veit, Leipzig 1891 ff.
  • Vol. 1: General Part - Connections of the Fat Series. 1893.
  • Vol. 2: Cyclic Compounds - Natural Products. Part 1: Mononuclear isocyclic compounds. 1902.
  • Vol. 2: Cyclic Compounds - Natural Products. Part 2: Polynuclear benzene derivatives. 1903.
  • Vol. 2: Cyclic Compounds - Natural Products. Part 3: Heterocyclic compounds. 1920.
  • Vol. 2: Cyclic Compounds - Natural Products. Part 4: Natural substances with an unknown or only partially known structure. 1924.
• From nature and science. Hiking sheets and sketches. Winter, Heidelberg 1892.

literature

• Richard Meyer : Victor Meyer 1848-1897. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society . Vol. 41, H. 3 (October – December 1908), pp. 4505–4718, doi: 10.1002 / cber.190804103190 ( PDF ).
• Paul Heinrich Jacobson :  Meyer, Victor . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 833-841.
• Michael Engel :  Meyer, Victor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 313-317 ( digitized version ).
• Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1803-1932 . (Ed.): Rectorate of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität-Heidelberg. Springer Berlin Heidelberg Tokyo. 2012. 324 pp. ISBN 978-3-642-70761-2
• Meyer, Victor , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 1971, Volume 11, Col. 1465

Web links

• Literature by and about Victor Meyer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Victor Meyer  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Leena Ruuskanen: The Heidelberg Bergfriedhof through the ages . Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher 2008, p. 164.
2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 168.