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Walther Nernst (1864-1941) won the Nobel prize in
chemistry in recognition of his work in thermochemistry. His work at low
temperatures resulted in his heat theorem - the Third Law of Thermodynamics.
As entropy changes approach zero near absolute zero, it becomes impossible
to reach this temperature, even by an infinite number of steps. Nernst
also developed an electric lamp based on rare earth and magnesium filaments
that did not need a vacuum to sustain its glow. This bulb is shown next
to his portrait on the stamp. |
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Fritz Haber (1868-1934) found a solution to the problem of dwindling nitrate
deposits in Chile, which were used in the manufacture of fertilizers.
He received the 1918 Nobel prize in chemistry "for the synthesis of ammonia
from its elements" by subjecting hydrogen and nitrogen to high pressure
in the presence of a catalyst. On the industrial scale this resulted in
the Haber-Bosch process. |
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This Swiss stamp and a similar one honoring Alfred
Nobel himself were a joint issue of Sweden and Switzerland in 1997.
Swiss chemist Paul Karrer's (1889-1971) research was in the chemistry
of natural products, particularly carotinoids and flavins. He isolated
vitamin A and determined its structure, the first vitamin so identified.
Likewise, he identified vitamin B2 and was able to synthesize it. He shared
the 1937 Nobel prize for chemistry with W. N. Haworth of England (see
above, Royal Society of Chemistry). |
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Willard Frank Libby (1908-1980) won the 1960 Nobel
prize in chemistry for discovering a technique for dating objects of biological
origin and used in archaeology and other sciences by measuring the decay
of radioactive carbon 14 which they contain. This isotope is continually
being created by gamma radiation of nitrogen in the upper atmosphere,
and it decays with a half-life of 5700 years. A tiny fraction of the carbon
in the atmosphere, it quickly forms carbon dioxide and is equally assimilated
by living organisms such as trees. However, when an organism dies, its
exchange of carbon dioxide with the atmosphere ceases, and the fraction
of carbon 14 in its molecular structure starts to decrease. The time period
from its death can then be calculated from the carbon decay in comparison
to that of a living specimen. Unlike many other Nobel prize winning discoveries,
this one is simple to grasp and yet is a powerful tool in verifying age
of natural remains. The stamp shows the exponential decay curve of carbon
14, an archaeological dig, and the head of a mummy. |
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Guilio Natta (1903-1979) and Karl Ziegler (1898-1973)
shared the 1963 Nobel prize in chemistry and now this Swedish stamp for
their work in polymer and organometallic chemistry. Ziegler was able to
polymerize ethylene under ambient conditions with trialkyl aluminum and
titanium chloride as catalysts, which had important applications for the
plastics industry. Natta went one step further from Ziegler's research
to achieve the stereo-regular polymerization of propylene, butene-1, and
styrene. Stereo-regular polymers had been found in nature, but as yet
not produced in the laboratory. Such a chain, regular in the stereochemical
configurations of its repeat units, is shown on the stamp beneath the
spider's web, whose silk is itself a polyalanine, with a certain amount
of randomness and not simple repeats in its structure. |
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Ilya Prigogine (1917-), a Russian-born Belgian chemist,
received the 1977 Nobel prize in chemistry for theoretical work on "dissipative
structures" by applying thermodynamics and statistical mechanics to non-equilibrium,
irreversible processes and systems. Prigogine showed that this new form
of ordered structures can exist under conditions far from thermodynamic
equilibrium, but only in symbiosis with their environment. For these,
entropy and disorder increase in the real world, but they remain themselves
internally highly ordered as systems. This Swedish stamp is a fascinating
allegory of this theory; the horses in their environment are such "dissipative
structures." |
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The design on the British stamp at left looks suspiciously
like a soccer ball, known to inspire passion and riots among fans of the
sport. As such it predates by many years its alternate incarnations both
as the geodesic dome designed for the 1967 Montreal Exhibition by architect
Buckminster Fuller, and as a newly discovered molecular structure for
the element Carbon. While Carbon in the form of graphite and diamond has
been around forever, it was not known that it could also form completely
closed ball-shaped stable structures of 60 or more atoms in just such
a pattern as the soccer ball. The discoverers, Robert F. Curl, Jr. and
Richard E. Smalley, both of the USA, and Harold W. Kroto of the UK won
the 1996 Nobel prize in Chemistry for creating and describing these molecules
they called Buckminsterfullerenes, in honor of the architect, fullerenes
for short, or informally, buckyballs. The British stamp was issued in
celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prizes, in 2001. |
