Adv Polym Sci (2013) 261: 1–20
DOI: 10.1007/12_2013_263
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Published online: 16 November 2013
A Moment of Reflection: Sixty Years After
the Nobel Prize for Hermann Staudinger
Helmut Ringsdorf
Abstract The timing of the award of the Nobel Prize for Hermann Staudinger in
1953 was indeed late, but it could not have been chosen better to honour the already
blossoming sciences surrounding synthetic as well as biological macromolecules.
A director could not have set the scene more perfectly for a historical event:
Staudinger received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the same time as Hans Krebs
and Fritz A. Lipman were able to accept the awards for Medicine.
Attempts to echo and reflect science cannot mean to look only at precise results
of research, cannot mean to establish the factual truth alone. We have to try to look
behind the curtain of science, look at the acting scientists and the life they had to
live and play in. And we have to try to describe what happened since and even
tackle predicting the future – at least a little bit.
Keywords H. Staudinger Á Responsibility in science Á Intelligence and curiosity Á
Science and sociopolitics
Contents
1 Hermann Staudinger: A Life Devoted to Science, Squeezed in Between Two World Wars
and Stepping Across Scientific, Social and Political Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 A Few Personal Remarks About Early Times with Hermann Staudinger, Magda Staudinger
and Hermann F. Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 On My Way to Freiburg: How to Start to Work With a Nobel Prize Winner: Cherchez
la Femme! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Mornings at the Desk of Hermann Staudinger (1956–1958) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 A “Historical Meeting” in Freiburg in the Late 1970s and Other Memories:
Anecdotes from Leo Gros (Fresenius University of Applied Sciences, Idstein)
That Contribute to the Teaching of Polymer Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
H. Ringsdorf (*)
Institute of Organic Chemistry, University Mainz, Duesbergweg 10-14, 55099 Mainz,
Germany
e-mail: ringsdor@uni-mainz.de
DOI: 10.1007/12_2013_263
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Published online: 16 November 2013
A Moment of Reflection: Sixty Years After
the Nobel Prize for Hermann Staudinger
Helmut Ringsdorf
Abstract The timing of the award of the Nobel Prize for Hermann Staudinger in
1953 was indeed late, but it could not have been chosen better to honour the already
blossoming sciences surrounding synthetic as well as biological macromolecules.
A director could not have set the scene more perfectly for a historical event:
Staudinger received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the same time as Hans Krebs
and Fritz A. Lipman were able to accept the awards for Medicine.
Attempts to echo and reflect science cannot mean to look only at precise results
of research, cannot mean to establish the factual truth alone. We have to try to look
behind the curtain of science, look at the acting scientists and the life they had to
live and play in. And we have to try to describe what happened since and even
tackle predicting the future – at least a little bit.
Keywords H. Staudinger Á Responsibility in science Á Intelligence and curiosity Á
Science and sociopolitics
Contents
1 Hermann Staudinger: A Life Devoted to Science, Squeezed in Between Two World Wars
and Stepping Across Scientific, Social and Political Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 A Few Personal Remarks About Early Times with Hermann Staudinger, Magda Staudinger
and Hermann F. Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 On My Way to Freiburg: How to Start to Work With a Nobel Prize Winner: Cherchez
la Femme! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Mornings at the Desk of Hermann Staudinger (1956–1958) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 A “Historical Meeting” in Freiburg in the Late 1970s and Other Memories:
Anecdotes from Leo Gros (Fresenius University of Applied Sciences, Idstein)
That Contribute to the Teaching of Polymer Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
H. Ringsdorf (*)
Institute of Organic Chemistry, University Mainz, Duesbergweg 10-14, 55099 Mainz,
Germany
e-mail: ringsdor@uni-mainz.de