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Paul Sabatier was born on 5 November 1854, in Carcassonne, France. He pursued his education at the Faculty of Science in Toulouse, where he studied chemistry under the guidance of renowned chemist Henri Moissan. Sabatier’s dedication and enthusiasm for research became evident during his formative years. Sabatier’s career was marked by groundbreaking research in the field of catalysis. His collaboration with Victor Grignard led to the development of the Sabatier–Grignard reaction, a fundamental process in organic chemistry. This reaction revolutionized the synthesis of hydrocarbons and contributed significantly to the understanding of chemical reactions involving metal catalysts.

Sabatier’s pioneering work extended to the field of catalytic hydrogenation, where he discovered that certain metal catalysts could facilitate the addition of hydrogen to organic compounds. This discovery had profound implications for industrial processes and laid the foundation for the field of heterogeneous catalysis. Paul Sabatier passed away on 14 August 1941 in Toulouse, France. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1912 for his development of the catalytic hydrogenation method. This recognition solidified his status as a leading figure in the scientific community and brought attention to the vital role of catalysis in chemical transformations. Paul Sabatier’s legacy is still evident today, as his work laid the groundwork for various applications in the chemical industry, including the production of pharmaceuticals, plastics, and fuels. His insights into catalysis have continued to inspire generations of chemists and researchers.

Sabatier’s early work lay in the fields of inorganic and physical chemistry. In the former he published a series of papers on the sulphides, including one on hydrogen disulphide (1886). In an examination of the properties of the oxides of nitrogen he, together with his pupil J. B. Senderens, discovered a number of new metallic nitrides. The deep blue nitroso-disulphonic acid and a series of complex cupric salts must be mentioned as other interesting achievements in preparative inorganic chemistry.

His early investigations in physical chemistry comprised a series of thermochemical measurements inspired by his professor, Marcelin Berthelot, a study of the velocity of transformation of metaphosphoric acid and the partition of a base between two acids.

It was not until he had been in the university of Toulouse for fifteen years that he commenced his remarkable investigations on the application of catalytic methods to organic compounds. When Sabatier commenced his investigations on the catalytic properties of finely divided metals, little was known about their mode of reaction, although the phenomenon of catalysis had been well established. The investigations of Faraday had led to the formulation of a physical theory of catalysis which postulated the absorption of gases in the pores of the solid catalyst. During the process of this absorption there is a simultaneous liberation of heat and it was imagined that the imposition of the two physical restraints, namely the elevation of the temperature and the compression to high densities was the cause of the acceleration of the chemical reaction between the reactants when brought into contact with the catalyst. This purely physical concept of the mode of action of a heterogeneous catalyst was not accepted by Sabatier, who quite early in his investigations pointed out a number of anomalies.

Thus, porous carbon should on this view be a universal catalyst for all gas reactions, but, as he observes, it is but a mediocre catalyst except for the formation of carbonyl chloride. Again, whilst metals in a finely divided state absorb considerable quantities of gas, these absorptions are somewhat specific being ‘characterized by a sort of selective affinity’. We see here the first suggestion of the present accepted view that there are in fact two kinds of adsorption: that due to the dispersive forces termed Van der Waals’ and that in which an electronic switch has occurred, termed chemi-sorption. Sabatier notes generally that one of the most remarkable properties in heterogeneous catalysis requiring explanation is the remarkable specificity exerted in many cases; thus he observes that zinc oxide decomposes formic acid into hydrogen and carbon dioxide exclusively, but at the same temperature titanium oxide gives carbon monoxide and water exclusively.

In his argument against the physical theory he finally comments that a sharp distinction would have to be made between the modus operandi of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts respectively, a difference it is scarcely logical to assume. Sabatier formulated a chemical theory of catalysis in which the temporary formation of unstable chemical compounds as intermediary steps is postulated. These determine on his view the direction and speed of the reaction. This concept was developed by consideration of several types of what he termed reciprocal catalysis. Thus hydrogen peroxide solutions decompose relatively slowly in the cold; the same is true for chromic acid solutions in dilute sulphuric acid. On mixing the two solutions there is a rapid decomposition with a brisk evolution of oxygen. The decomposition takes place in a proportionated manner corresponding to 3H20 2: 2H2C r0 4. The clue to this reciprocal catalytic effect is to be found in the formation of the dark blue compound perchromic acid as a result of stoichiometric combination between the reactants in each system.

Sabatier developed in a systematic manner this concept of a temporary unstable combination as the explanation of catalysis in general. Sabatier and his co-workers contributed to many and varied branches of catalytic reactions applied to synthesis in organic chemistry. An indication of his versatility can be obtained from the following cases.

Sabatier’s examination of reactions involving catalytic hydrogenation is perhaps the most comprehensive of any investigation undertaken in exploring a new method or a new reaction. This examination which was commenced in 1897 and terminated some twenty years later, was carried out with comparatively simple apparatus which, however, were so well conceived that they remain as the standard procedure at the present time. Sabatier was assisted in this work by several collaborators, many of whom at a later date made definite contributions to the science of catalytic chemistry. Amongst these may be mentioned especially the Abbe Senderens, Mailhe and Murat. The general method of catalytic hydrogenation developed by Sabatier consisted in passing the vapours of the organic substance together with hydrogen over a suitably heated catalyst at the appropriate temperature. Sabatier was fully alive to the technical implications pf catalytic hydrogenation, and indeed, an imposing list of patent applications stood in his name. It is one of those unfortunate chance occurrences that Sabatier’s interests were not directed to liquid phase hydrogenation—a process which revolutionized the fat industry throughout the world. The first attempt to hydrogenate liquid fats was only made six years after Sabatier’s original investigations had been published. At a still later date the use of high pressures originally proposed and developed by Ipatiev must be regarded as another distinct advance in the technical application of Sabatier’s principles. Catalytic hydrogenation is frequently carried out in the laboratory with the aid of platinum or palladium, either in colloidal suspension as a protected colloid, a method originating with Paal, or in the form of finely divided metal, e.g. platinum black intimately mixed with the material to be hydrogenated. Many modifications of the latter method especially the one developed by Willstatter are in everyday use at the present time. Sabatier’s nickel catalyst, so effective in vapour phase hydrogenation, was applied most successfully to liquid phase hydrogenation in the first instance by Ipatiev, the results obtained being quite as effective as those when the rare metals were employed. At the present time nickel in various forms is the most versatile and reliable hydrogenating catalyst.

The particular merit of Sabatier’s work in the field of catalysis lies in the fact that it revealed the great potentialities of the method in the field of preparative organic chemistry. This method on account of its simplicity and elegance is now in everyday use, both in the research laboratory and in the organic chemical industry.

Sabatier was awarded the Lacaze prize of the Academy of Science of Paris in 1897 and the Jecker prize in 1905. In 1912 he was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry and in 1915 he received the Davy medal from the Royal Society to which he was elected as foreign member in 1918. He was a foreign member of several other scientific societies, notably of the Royal Institution of the Academies of Sciences of Amsterdam and Madrid and of the Royal Society of Bohemia. He was elected Doctor honoris causa of the universities of Louvain and of Saragossa.

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Elihu Root was born on February 15, 1845 in Clinton, New York, the son of a professor of mathematics at Hamilton College where he obtained a BA in 1864, LL B from New York City University in 1867, and was that same year called to the New York bar. He became a lawyer specializing in corporate law. He was appointed district attorney for New York Southern district, 1883 – 5. Thereafter he returned to private practice whilst assuming an active role in the Republican Party of New York City.

One of the most brilliant administrators in American history, Elihu Root was the prototype of the 20th century “wise man”, who shuttled between high-level government positions in Washington, D.C. and private-sector legal practice in New York City. He became a U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York in 1883. He served as secretary of war from 1899 to 1904. After the Spanish-American War, he set up a civil government in Puerto Rico and organized U.S. control of the Philippines. As secretary of state (190509) under Theodore Roosevelt, he concluded treaties with Japan and persuaded Latin American states to participate in the second Hague conference in 1907 ( Hague Conventions). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1912. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1909 to 1915.  He became a lawyer specializing in corporate law. He was appointed district attorney for New York Southern district, 1883 – 5. Thereafter he returned to private practice whilst assuming an active role in the Republican Party of New York City.

Root was the paragon of the legalist era in American foreign policy, which saw the strengthening of international law and institutions as the keys to world peace. I and his thinking particularly topical because of his determination to separate morals and politics entirely from law, as it provides a stark contrast with present practices in both the US and the UN. Moreover, many of the issues Root and the international community faced during the drafting of the League are still sources of heated debate to this day. Therefore, to me, the legalism of Root provides an excellent perspective for reflecting upon the current state of affairs. While recognizing the context of Root’s framework, as well as its possible shortfalls to the contemporary reader, legalism provides interesting ideas that still resonate in present-day discussions.

While Root did underline the importance of democratic governments as a foundation of a durable law between nations especially during the War, his conservative ethos led him to focus more on pursuing a system of checks and balances in government and restricting the man in the mass throughout his career. Portraying legalism generally as a cosmopolitan idealism would also be fallacious, since, in spite of its language, it served through various people and forms to promote US national interests as well.

From the point of view of international legal history, Root stands out first and foremost as a keen proponent of strong international courts and international law. Today, Root’s assurance on international law’s capacity to resolve conflicts may seem excessive or even naïve. Such a commitment to legality and stability in foreign affairs was, however, the rule rather than the exception in early 20th century America. The legalistic nature of the era is manifested for instance in the US Department of State, which was headed by a lawyer from 1889 to 1945. It should not come as a surprise, then, that the beliefs and assumptions of lawyers profoundly influenced the nation’s foreign policy.  Root was arguably the paragon of these diplomat-lawyers, and one of the most influential American politicians of his time especially in the field of foreign affairs. Among other prestigious positions, he served in the Cabinets of McKinley and Roosevelt, co-founded and chaired the American Society of International Law, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1905, President Roosevelt named Root to be the Secretary of State after the death of JOHN HAY. On a tour to Latin America in 1906, Root persuaded those governments to participate in the Hague Peace Conference. He worked with Japan to establish the Root-Takahira Agreement, which limited Japanese and American naval fortifications in the Pacific.

The situation changed with the appointment of Elihu Root as Secretary of State in July 1905. From then until 1909 it was Root who formulated and carried out most of the administration’s Latin American policies. Roosevelt, who was not prone to minimize the importance of his own role, was emphatic in giving credit to the Secretary of State for what was accomplished. “During the past three years,” he wrote in February 1909, “. . . the bulk of the most im­portant work we have done has been in connection with the South and Central American States. We have done more as regards these States than ever before in the history of the State Department. This work has been entirely Root’s. My part in it has been little beyond cordially backing him up. It was he who thought of making that extraordinary trip around South America which did more than has ever been done previously to bring the South American States into close touch with us. It was he who made the Pan American Con­gress a matter of real and great importance for the Commonwealths of the Western Hemisphere. It was he who gave life to the Bureau of American Republics. It was he who brought about the formation of the international court for the Central American States. It was he who finally got the Senate to accept the Santo Domingo treaty.

In June 1916, he was drafted for the Republican presidential nomination but declined, stating that he was too old to bear the burden of the Presidency. The nomination went to CHARLES EVANS HUGHES, who lost the election to Democrat WOODROW WILSON . Root’s initiatives are remarkable. He helped create the Permanent Court of International Justice; he was the founding chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations; he was the first president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he helped found the American Society of International Law; he was among the founders of the American Law Institute, and he also helped create the Hague Academy of International Law. In 1912, Root received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Root remained an influential voice within the American foreign policy élite and served on numerous national and international bodies. In 1917, as President Wilson’s ambassador extraordinary, he headed a diplomatic mission to Russia, tasked with trying to persuade Russia to stay in the war. As chairman of the Republican Party national convention in Chicago in 1912, it was Root who presided over the historic division of the party that year, which led to the formation of the Progressive Party.

Root was noted for his brilliant analytical mind and a remarkable faculty for solving complicated problems of law, politics, and international affairs. His services in the cause of international peace were recognized in 1912 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the author of several books including: Experiment in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution (1913); Russia and the United States (1917).

Elihu Root died on February 7, 1937 in New York City with his family by his side.

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Marie Curie was born Maria Sklodowska on 7 November 1867 in Warsaw, in what was then the Russian Empire, with Poland having been divided up amongst various European nations due to war and subsequent treaties. When she was only 10 years old her mother died of tuberculosis, a short time after her elder sister had died of typhus. Despite this setback, Marie struggled on with her studies, graduating high school at age 15 with impressive marks. Soon after graduation however, she succumbed to depression and had to take a year off, staying with relatives in the countryside.

Marie’s collaboration with her husband, Pierre Curie, was instrumental in their groundbreaking research on radioactivity — a term they coined. This collaboration would prove to be influential in the world of science, underlining the power of intellectual synergy.

Beyond her significant contributions to science, Marie Curie set an example for women in academia, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win in two different sciences. Her life serves as a beacon of resilience, intellect, and dedication.

Marie Curie’s life story is a powerful narrative of relentless dedication to scientific discovery, even in the face of adversity. Her journey underscores the impact that passion, hard work, and collaboration can have on advancing human knowledge.

As we chart our own paths, let Curie’s perseverance inspire us to overcome obstacles and continue seeking knowledge. Her legacy serves as a reminder that curiosity and determination can illuminate the darkest corners of our understanding, forever altering the landscape of human achievement.

Madame Marie Curie is a scientific icon remembered for her pioneering work in the field of radiation research. She discovered Radium and Polonium, defining their atomic weight and their place in the periodic system, and she was the first to discover methods for extracting pure Radium salts and metal. Marie Curie, who first coined the term “radioactivity”, was key in developing methods for quantitatively measuring radioactivity and for discovering its effect on living cells. Curie was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, first in 1903 in Physics and then again in 1911 in the field of Chemistry. She was the first person ever to be awarded two Nobel Prizes, and along with Linus Pauling, is one of only two to have done so in two separate fields. In addition, Curie was the first woman in history to earn a Ph.D. at a French university. She is in general remembered for her scientific brilliance and for her diligence and perseverance in the face of tremendous discrimination and hardship.

The Curies became research workers at the School of Chemistry and Physics in Paris. It was here that they began the work in the field of radioactive substances, recently discovered by Henri Becquerel.  He found that rays of Uranium passed through solid matter.  Marie noticed that samples of the mineral called pitchblende, containing uranium ore, were much more radioactive than the pure element uranium.  Marie was therefore convinced that she had discovered a new chemical element, but other scientists doubted her results.  Using acids to distill this unknown element, they eventually extracted a black powder 330 times more radioactive than uranium, which they named polonium.  It earned its place as number 84 on the elemental table.

After having extracted polonium from the pitchblende, they realized that the liquid leftover after its removal was still radioactive.  Further investigation revealed the presence of a substance they named radium.  The work required to extract radium was physically demanding, and being radioactive, we can only assume their symptoms of ill-health were symptoms of radiation sickness.  In 1911, Sorbonne built its own radium institute for studying radioactivity and the treatment of cancer.  During World War 1 Marie Curie developed the first mobile X-Ray unit used to diagnose injuries on the battlefields.

She received numerous awards, prizes, and honorary degrees for her contributions to cancer research and imaging technology.

“A triumph for heritage preservation! Marie Curie’s Paris lab, where the Polish-born Nobel laureate pioneered groundbreaking research, gets a reprieve from demolition. Let’s keep the legacy of this extraordinary scientist alive!” he wrote. However, activist Baptiste Gianeselli, a key figure in the campaign to save the laboratory and have it listed as a historic monument, said the fight is not over.

Marie Curie had no intention of settling down to a traditional life of wife and mother however. Instead she set out to earn her doctorate -– a thing utterly unheard of in France at that time. Pierre’s father moved in to help with Irène, and Marie found her imagination fired by the field of radiation research, only just then discovered by Henri Becquerel and Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. Because so much attention was already on Röntgen’s X-rays, she turned her attention to Uranium radiation reported by Becquerel, of which almost nothing was known at the time.

Working in the lab she shared with Pierre, she soon discovered that the level of radiation emitted depended only on the quantity of the Uranium contained in a compound, and not on the types of other elements that the compound contained. This meant that the “radioactivity”, as she dubbed it, was not the result of a reaction between elements, but was instead the result of something going on within the Uranium atoms themselves.

At the same time that Marie was discovering additional radioactive properties—and elements. She found that like Uranium, Thorium also emitted radiation. And as she and Pierre began working together, isolating radioactive elements from a Uranium ore compound called “pitchblende”, they managed to uncover two entirely new elements, each highly radioactive. These they named “Radium” and “Polonium”, the latter in honor of Marie’s native Poland. Their groundbreaking work on the elements and their properties, and their research into potential applications, brought them much needed funding from industry and earned them the Nobel Prize for physics. In addition, Marie earned her doctorate degree, becoming the first woman in France to achieve that distinction.

But on 19 April 1906, tragedy struck: Pierre slipped and fell in the street, and his head was crushed under the wheels of a heavy wagon, killing him instantly. Somehow, despite the blow, Marie managed to persevere, bringing her attention back to her research and to the constant effort to find funding. Then, in a surprise move, the Sorbonne offered her Pierre’s former post in the Physics department, making Marie their first female professor. Respect for her work continued to grow, especially her work developing methods for Radium extraction, and in she was awarded her second Nobel Prize, this time entirely on her own right.

On 4 July 1934, at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, France at the age of 66, Marie Curie died. The cause of her death was given as aplastic pernicious anaemia, a condition she developed after years of exposure to radiation through her work.

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Maurice Maeterlinck 29 August, 1862 –6 May, 1949 was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was a Fleming, but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. His plays form an important part of the Symbolist art movement, which was influenced by Theosophy. Among his favorite themes were those of death and the meaning of life, occultism, ethics and natural history. He was educated at a Jesuit college and read law, but a short practice as a lawyer in his home town convinced him that he was unfit for the profession. He was drawn toward literature during a stay in Paris, where he associated with a number of men of letters, in particular Villiers de l’Isle Adam, who greatly influenced him. Maeterlinck established himself in Paris in 1896 but later lived at Saint-Wandrille, an old Norman abbey that he had restored. He was predominantly a writer of lyrical dramas, but his first work was a collection of poems entitled Serres chaudes [Ardent Talons]. It appeared in 1889, the same year in which his first play, La Princesse Maleine, received enthusiastic praise from Octave Mirbeau, the literary critic of Le Figaro, and made him famous overnight. Lack of action, fatalism, mysticism, and the constant presence of death characterize the works of Maeterlinck’s early period, such as L’Intruse (1890) [The Intruder], Les Aveugles (1890) [The Blind], and the love dramas Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), Alladine et Palomides (1894), and Aglavaine et Sélysette (1896). The shadow of death looms even larger in his later plays, Joyzelle (1903) and Marie Magdeleine (1909), Maeterlinck’s version of a Paul Heyse play, while L’Oiseau bleu (1909) [The Blue Bird] is marked by a fairy-tale optimism. Le Bourgmestre de Stilemonde (1919) [The Burgomaster of Stilemonde] was written under the impact of the First World War.

“in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers’ own feelings and stimulate their imaginations”

As a young man, Maurice Maeterlink attended a Jesuit convent school and then studied law, as his parents wished. After a couple of years, he abandoned the legal track to become a writer and made his debut with the play La Princesse Maleine (1889). Together with actress Georgette Leblanc, he spent a few summers in Normandy in an old monastery that the church had given him permission to use. There he presented his plays under the direction of Leblanc. Maeterlinck then married Renée Dahon, also an actress.

Maeterlinck was a symbolist and agnostic who, in dreamlike dramas and poetry, examined the inner life of humankind and the subconscious. Milieus and epochs in his dramas are often fluid and indeterminate, which strengthens the symbolism. He dedicated himself to creating moods rather than to describing reality. Some of his dramas were written for puppets because Maeterlinck believed that human actors would stand in the way of the symbolic. In addition, he argued that the puppets were a powerful image of humankind’s dependence on fate.

Maeterlinck was a symbolist and agnostic who, in dreamlike dramas and poetry, examined the inner life of humankind and the subconscious. Milieus and epochs in his dramas are often fluid and indeterminate, which strengthens the symbolism. He dedicated himself to creating moods rather than to describing reality. Some of his dramas were written for puppets because Maeterlinck believed that human actors would stand in the way of the symbolic. In addition, he argued that the puppets were a powerful image of humankind’s dependence on fate.

Furthermore, Maeterlinck’s graceful gothic realm affected Roerich’s art and philosophical outlook in ways that no other cultural space did. Concrete points of connection joined Maeterlinck and Roerich. The two shared a neo-Romantic/Symbolist idealization of the medieval, an attraction to various forms of mysticism (especially Theosophy), and a conviction that art reflected, even conferred, spiritual wisdom.  On all these points, the effort of giving form to Maeterlinck’s rarefied, twilit realm of castles and convents shaped Roerich’s thinking. Much of Maeterlinck’s impact consisted of reinforcing affinities Roerich already felt for certain authors, ideas, and symbols. In this way, Maeterlinck influenced how Roerich portrayed female characters, assigned meaning to color, and painted architecture. More directly, Maeterlinck left his own distinct imprint: his writings encouraged Roerich to adopt one of the most important leitmotifs of his middle and later paintings. This was the cavern, a passageway to wisdom that, with the mountain, served as a crucial symbol in Roerich’s many works depicting the attainment of spiritual enlightenment. This essay will present a brief overview of the Maeterlinck productions with which Roerich was involved, then turn to Maeterlinck’s use of the cave motif. It will go on to analyze how Roerich used that motif, as well as how he joined it metaphorically with his painting of mountains.

Maeterlinck’s career intersected with fin-de-siècle Russian culture in numerous ways. He was invited to contribute to World of Art (Mir iskusstva), and the many writers and thinkers influenced by him included Valery Briusov, Alexander Blok, Vasily Rozanov, Nikolai Berdiaev, and Konstantin Balmont. If Debussy, Fauré, and Sibelius tried their  hand at musical works based on Maeterlinck, so did Ilya Sats, Nikolai Cherepnin, Alexander  Grechaninov, Sergei Taneev, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Russia’s premier group of Symbolist  painters, the Blue Rose, was devoted to Maeterlinck; Kandinsky and Chagall were likewise  intrigued by him. Theater directors—among them Konstantin Stanislavsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, and Alexander Tairov (whose Belgian-born wife, actress Alisa Koonen, admired her compatriot’s talent)—also responded to Maeterlinck.

It was at the Moscow Art Theater, in September 1908, that Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird had its world premiere. Common to many of Maeterlinck’s plays were the motifs of the subterranean space—a cavern or dungeon, into which the protagonist, usually female, descends or is imprisoned— and the high place, most often a tower. Roerich was greatly attracted to these paired tropes. In his designs for Maleine and Beatrice, he put emphasis on both, especially the former, and used both for years afterward.  For both men, underground enclosures and elevated spaces were metaphysically significant. The overarching goal of Maeterlinckian drama is to portray the soul at various stages on its path from insensibility to awakening. Rejecting the Catholic Church, Maeterlinck turned to a universalist mysticism that derived from Neoplatonic idealism, the Christian meditations of Eckhart and Boehme, Spinozan pantheism, Swedenborgianism, Romantic transcendentalism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Blavatskian Theosophy. He believed that, while a divine intelligence pervades the universe, and the soul survives death in one form or another, a veil of mystery separates humanity from God and the truth. To gain enlightenment, the soul must overcome this spiritual blindness.

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Otto Wallach’s father was a resident of the Prussian town of Konigsberg. This is where Otto was born on 27th March 1847. His family became Lutherans after conversion from Judaism. His father reached such heights in public service and rose to the position of Auditor General while working in Potsdam. His family, however, moved to Potsdam from Stettin after moving there from Konigsberg after Otto was born. Otto started school at the humanistic Gymnasium in Potsdam although there were hardly subjects taken in the sciences. While schooling here, Otto took classes in the Arts, incorporating literature and history.

I N Otto Wallach, German chemistry loses one of its organic pillars. He is almost the last to go of a great generation which believed in the serious study of at the laboratory bench as the prime and proper occupation of the chemist and could express itself in plain, straightforward, honest language, free from illusions and pretence. The split p and the proton leaning-post have changed all that : the beginner no longer learns even to determine the molecular weight of oxygen, although he is prepared to discuss the ‘in’ards’ of its atoms ; analysis is a meaningless word to him ; he is not really to be trusted to analyse anything, either by word or deed. What was a moral science is fast becoming mere superstition to the majority. The example of a craftsman like Wallach is therefore of special value. Devoting himself to the study of one of the great groups of plant products, the essential oils, he developed consummate analytical skill in unravelling Nature’s most tangled mixtures, thus laying not only foundations for the future study of vital products but also contributing largely to the development of a most remunerative industry.

The first foundations of terpene chemistry were laid in France, especially by Berthelot. Gladstone and Wright were early in the field here but did not get very far. In the early ‘seventies, Tilden and I began to revise and extend the French work but the real cause of advance was Tilden’s brilliant discovery of the beautifully crystalline nitrosochlorides and nitroso-derivatives of (pinene) and citrene. We were early convinced that the number of isomeric hydrocarbons had been greatly exaggerated. Wallach began by studying wormseed oil but soon passed into our field-without ever asking our permission, although those were days when not all were pirates as now. He scored his first real success in working with Tilden’s compounds. It was therefore amusing when, in 1890, in a paper in the Annalen he practically accused me of having picked his brains when I had visited his laboratory shortly before. This was in connexion with sobrerol. As a matter of fact, I had been collecting the material a dozen years previously: it was in this work that Sir William Pope’s crystallographic genius first became apparent.

If we ask why Tilden, who made so brilliant a beginning, did so little afterwards, whilst Wallach who had trod in his footsteps did so much, the answer is that in 1880 Tilden became the head of a new school (Mason College) and had ‘ fish to fry ‘ more important than essential oils. Wallach had not a few helpers, under the German university system. The last thing Birmingham cared for then was research. Tilden had scarce a student to work with him: his men were under no Ph.D. compulsion to attempt original work. I was in a like position and, at about the time Wallach began, had three new laboratories on my hands in rapid succession. Still we kept the camphor pot boiling usefully, so that an English camphor school gradually arose ; this began by doubting Kekule. Perkin junior’s synthetic terpene work stands unrivalled. Later English workers in the field have given proof that there are still craftsmen among us. Maybe, ere long we shall have to show that not a few of the conclusions of the Wallach school are unsound.

Wallach was able to accomplish his work because he was under conditions which were the outcome of centuries of loving care for the universities and a public belief in the value of education. Here, fifty to sixty years ago, even Oxford and Cambridge were scarce known to natural science. Cambridge came fairly rapidly to the fore but Oxford was slower. Meanwhile schools of university rank have been established in every considerable town in the country ; perhaps some of us who have contributed to this end may prove to have done work of far more value than that on essential oils.

Otto Wallach was a German chemist born in the Kingdom of Prussia in the middle of nineteenth century. He received the 1910 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on alicyclic compounds. Educated at a gymnasium, which laid more stress on humanities than science, he started experimenting on different chemical reactions at home. Ultimately, he graduated from the University of Göttingen with chemistry and received his PhD from there at the age of twenty-two. At the age of twenty-three, he joined the University of Bonn as a Lecturer of Pharmacy; but soon was drafted into the Franco Prussian War of 1870. After the war he first tried to settle in Berlin, but circumstances were such that he had to rejoin the University of Bonn for the second time. It was at this phase that his mentor, Friedrich August Kekulé, came across an old and forgotten cupboard full of essential oils and asked him to investigate on them. Thus he began a long and detailed experimentation. Among other things, it led to the discovery of terpene and established the foundation of modern perfume industry.

Otto Wallach was however self-taught in the sciences and chemistry. By the time he was due for the university; Otto Wallach had proceeded to the University of Gottingen in 1865 but soon left for Berlin. He served as understudy to G. Magnus and A.W. Hoffman but only waited for a semester before returning to Gottingen. Otto was awarded a doctorate after research and studies for five semesters.

When1870 dawned, Otto Wallach was due for military service, and this was during the war with France in which they were pitted against the Prussians. When the war ended, Otto made his way back to work in a production firm. However, the chemicals that littered the premises were hazardous to Otto’s fragile health, and he had to resign. Otto found himself again in the academic environment when he relocated to the University of Boon from Berlin. This was in 1872, and Otto persevered and immersed himself in research here for the next decade. He became a Professor Extraordinary after four years, and this was a testament to his scholarly contributions. When the school’s Pharmacology Chair became vacant in 1879, Otto he was obligated to fill the void. This led to his specialization in the field of pharmacology. This was how he uncovered reaction of phosphorus pentachloride when exposed to acid amides. Otto’s innovation led to the discovery of imino chloride.

Through his contributions on derivatization and structural elucidation Otto Wallach revolutionized terpene chemistry. His research in this area, begun in 1884, earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry a hundred years ago.

Otto Wallach’s focus on a few abandoned bottles left in the research cupboard which contained essential oils was how he chanced upon a new field of work. He immersed himself in researching these over the next decade, and it became his focal work of research. Otto’s commitment and research were exemplary, and he exuded distinction as an outcome.

Terpenes are a large and varied group of hydrocarbon compounds that exist in many fragrant substances in nature, including turpentine and other essential oils. In the 1880s Otto Wallach surveyed such substances and developed methods for extracting different terpenes from mixtures. He showed that many substances were mixtures of a small number of terpenes and that terpenes can easily be altered and change into each other. Wallach’s work became significant within the chemical industry, where essential oils are used in perfume and food.

He died on 26 February 1931, and was buried in the Gottingen.

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Far more celebrated than any of his positivist contemporaries, Henryk Sienkiewicz began as a journalist and achieved considerable renown with his account of a two-year journey to the United States. Between 1882 and 1888 he wrote three historical novels dealing with political and military events in seventeenth-century Poland: With Fire and Sword, The Deluge (1886), and Fire in the Steppe (1888, also translated as Pan Michael). Although superficial in its analysis of historical events, the trilogy gained enormous popularity both in Poland and in other Slavic countries thanks to Sienkiewicz’s masterful use of epic techniques and of the seventeenth-century colloquial idiom. Even more popular, if artistically far weaker, was his Quo Vadis? (1896), a novel about Rome in the age of Nero (Sienkiewicz’s fame in the West is chiefly based on this work). Another historical novel, The Teutonic Knights (1900), deals with the fifteenth-century struggle between Poland-Lithuania and the Teutonic Order. The Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz is best remembered for his historical novels, particularly the internationally known bestseller ‘Quo Vadis’. Numerous translations of his innovative novels gained him international renown, culminating with the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature for “outstanding merits as an epic writer.” This comprehensive eBook presents Sienkiewicz’ complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material.

Polish novelist, a storyteller, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Henryk Sienkiewicz’s most famous novels include the widely translated and several times filmed Quo Vadis? (1896). His strongly Catholic worldview deeply marked his writing. Sienkiewicz’s works have been published in 50 languages.

Henryk Sienkiewicz was born to a well-to-do family in Wola Okrzejska, a town in Russian-ruled Poland. Because of economic difficulties, the family sold their rural property and moved to Warsaw. At the age of 12, Sienkiewicz entered Warsaw Gymnasium. While a student he started to write newspaper columns under the pseudonym Litwos. Inspired by the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas, Sienkiewicz composed his first historical story, Ofiara (The Sacrifice), of which no manuscript is known to survive.

Finding himself penniless, Sienkiewicz left the city without receiving a degree, and moved to the countryside, earning his living as a private teacher. Upon returnin to Warsaw,  he attended the Polish University (Szkola Glowna), where studied law and medicine, and later history and literature. In the 1870s, he worked as a freelance journalist, and wrote short stories and novels.For a time he was a coeditor of the biweekly Niwa. Sienkiewicz’s debut novel, Ma marne (1872), was set in the ancient city of Kieff and depicted student life. First printed in the magazine Wieniec, its publication in book form (1876) was delayed due to the failure of the Kraszewski publishing house.

Inspired by Walter Scott and French historical novels Sienkiewicz started to work in 1882 on his own trilogy of historical novels. Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword) was published in 1884. It was followed by sequels Potop (1886, The Deluge) and Pan Michael (1888). All these works were carefully researched and written in an exciting, fast-paced style. Sienkiewicz showed his skills in creating colorful characters, which also fascinated readers outside Poland. Speaking of his work, Sienkiewicz said that he wrote most of his novels day by day, sending off the newly-written pages to the printer.

In 1876, Sienkiewicz went to the United States with the actress Helena Mofjeska, who planned to establish in California a settlement with his friends. This journey lasted three years. Sienkiewicz published enthusiastic letters about American technical achievements, society and the natural beauty of California in the newspaper Gazeta Polska. His stay in the USA also inspired several short stories, among them ‘Latarnik’ (1882).

At the end of 1879, Sienkiewicz returned to Warsaw. He became co-editor of the conservative newspaper Slowo (1882-87), where he published his early novels. He was a founding member of the Mianowski Foundation and a co-founder and president of Literary Foundation (1899).

Sienkiewicz’s indifference to the ideological debate of the time angered some critics. The poet and dramatist Adam Asnyk (1838-1897) said he was “just an artist without any convictions.” (Sienkiewicz’s Bodies: Studies of Gender and Violence by Ryszard Koziolek, translated by David Malcolm, Peter Lang, 2015, p. 18) Sienkiewicz remained silent during the smear campaign, but he was deeply hurt by it.

Sienkiewicz traveled widely, spending time in Africa in 1891, where he contracted malaria, and visiting Italy for his novel Quo Vadis? His marriage to Maria Romanowska-Wołodkiewich in 1893 was annulled on technical ground in 1896; she was 28 years his junior and left him soon after the wedding. Later Sienkiewicz admitted his error in judgment. Among the other real historical characters are the writers Petronius (d. 66), a rich aesthetician, and Seneca (d. 65), who opposes Nero. Petronius meets Paul who tells him: “The whole world is trembling before you, and ye are trembling before your own slaves, for ye know that any hour may raise an awful war against your oppression, such a war as has been raised more than once. Though rich, thou art not sure that the command may not come to thee to-morrow to leave thy wealth; thou art young, but to-morrow it may be necessary for thee to die.”

It was one of the first novels adapted for the screen; this made it a part of popular culture. In the early 1900s two versions were produced, one French and one Italian. Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s adaptation of 2001, supported by Pope John Paul II, was filmed in Tunisia, Poland and France. Along with Edward Bulwer Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) and Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ (1880), Sienkiewicz’s work has been among the most popular historical novels dealing with early Christianity.

Sienkiewicz was married three times. Already in 1888, he had promised to marry Maria Babska, his niece, who was 14 years younger than he. She spent years in a monastery, but eventually the married in 1904. Maria became his partner for the rest of his life.

Krzyzacy (1900, The Teutonic Knights), Sienkiewicz’s last important novel, was set in medieval Poland at the time of its conflict with the Teutonic Order. This work, which culminated in the Battle of Grunwald, where the Teutonic knights were defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian coalition, clearly referred to the policy of the then German state towards the Poles. While Sienkiewicz’s heroes in Ogniem i mieczem affected the course of history, now the comradeship of the Poles play a major role. The protagonist is a young nobleman, Zbysko of Bogdaniec, who fights against the Order. Since 1918, the novel has been on the compulsory reading list of the elementary school curriculum. W pustyni i w puszczy (1911, In Desert and Wilderness), written for teenagers, was located in the deserts and savannas of Africa in the year of Mahdi’s rebellion and the capture of Khartoum. Its lively details were partly based on the author’s travels in Africa. Prusse et Pologne (1907) attacked the Prussian government’s land policy in Prussian-occupied Poland.

In 1900, Sienkiewicz was given  an estate by the Polish government at Oblegorek, near Kielce. With the outbreak of WW I, Sienkiewicz fled to Switzerland and settled in Vevey. He was a member of the Swiss Relief Committee for the War Victims in Poland. Sienkiewicz died of heart failure in Vevey on November 15, 1916. His body was returned to Poland eight years later. “To appraise him objectively is quite a task,” wrote the Polish Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz, “for he combined a rare narrative gift with shortcomings that are serious enough to disqualify him from the title of a truly great writer.” (The History of Polish Literature by Czesław Miłosz, second edition, University of California Press, In his acceptance speech of the Nobel prize Sienkiewicz stated that “it has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved; but here is the proof of her life and triumph.”

Novelist, journalist, columnist and scholar. He is the first Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, admired by generations of his compatriots for awakening a sense of national community and patriotic spirit. He was born on May 5, 1846 in Wola Okrzejska, in the so-called Polish countryside halfway between Warsaw and Lublin, in the Podlaskie region of northeastern Poland, and died on November 15, 1916 in Vevey, Switzerland.

At the time of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s birth, Kierkegard was writing his work Deadly disease with the analysis of the nature of existential anguish and the act of faith as something terrifying, a non-rational leap to reach a passionate, total and personal commitment to God. Auguste Comte finished his Positive philosophy courserejecting all theology and metaphysics to affirm that only positive science is capable of giving order and progress to the human being. Ernest Renan began the path of the search for the historical Jesus, without faith in his divinity, which would end up in his work Life of Jesus. The second half of the 19th century is a time of skepticism and doubts about the old faith, and in Poland it is a time of penance in expectation of a new birth.

Sienkiewicz’s stories were an eloquent testimony to the vivacity with which he reacted to matters that touched public opinion, and at the same time demonstrated a profound knowledge of human psychology.

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Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (November 30, 1817 – November 1, 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer, generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the nineteenth century. His work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902, for the quality of his historical writings, displaying a passionate commitment to his historical studies as well as the politics of his day. He was involved in the Revolutions of 1848 and was later a prominent German politician, as a member of the Prussian and German parliaments. His works on Roman law and on the law of obligations had a significant impact on the German civil code (BGB).

Mommsen was born in Garding, Schleswig, and grew up in Bad Olde sloe, where his father was a poor Lutheran minister. He studied mostly at home, though he attended gymnasium in Altona for four years. He studied Greek and Latin and received his diploma in 1837, graduating as a doctor of Roman law. As he could not afford to study at one of the more prestigious German universities, he enrolled at the university of Kiel in Holstein. Mommsen studied jurisprudence at Kiel from 1838 to 1843. Thanks to a Danish grant, he was able to visit France and Italy to study preserved classical Roman inscriptions. During the revolutions of 1848 he supported monarchists and worked as a war correspondent (journalist) in Danish at that time Rendsburg, supporting the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein by his country and constitutional reform. He became a professor of law in the same year at the University of Leipzig. When Mommsen protested the new constitution of Saxony in 1851, he had to resign. However, the next year, he obtained a professorship in Roman law at the University of Zurich and spent a couple of years in exile. In 1854, he became a professor of law at the University of Breslau where he met Jakob Bernays. Mommsen became a research professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1857. He later helped to create and manage the German Archaeological Institute in Rome.

In 1858, Mommsen was appointed a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, and he also became professor of Roman History at the University of Berlin in 1861, where he held lectures up to 1887. Mommsen received high recognition for his scientific achievements: The medal Pour le Mérite in 1868, honorary citizenship of Rome, and the Nobel prize for literature in 1902 for his main work, Romische Geschichte (Roman History). Until 2007, Mommsen was both the oldest person to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature and the first-born laureate; born in 1817, he won the second Nobel ever awarded at the age of eighty-five. The next oldest laureate in Literature is Paul Heyse, born in 1830, who won the Nobel in 1910. Since 2007, when Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize in Literature, she is the oldest person who was ever awarded the prize. He is one of the very few non-fiction writers to receive the Nobel prize in literature. Mommsen had sixteen children with his wife Marie (daughter of the editor Karl Reimer from Leipzig), some of whom died in childhood. Two of his great-grandsons, Hans and Wolfgang, also became prominent German historians.

Mommsen was dedicated to his profession. He rose at five and began to work in his library. Whenever he went out, he took one of his books along to read, and contemporaries often found him reading while walking in the streets. At 2 a.m. on July 7, 1880, a fire ignited in the upper floor workroom-library of Mommsen’s house at Marchstrabe 6 in Berlin. Several old manuscripts were burnt to ashes, including Manuscript 0.4.36 which was on loan from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. There is information that the Manuscript of Jordanes from Heidelberg University library was burnt. Two other important manuscripts, from Brussels and Halle, were also destroyed.

Mommsen published over 1,500 works, and effectively established a new framework for the systematic study of Roman history. He pioneered epigraphy, the study of inscriptions in material artifacts. Although the unfinished History of Rome has been widely considered as his main work, the work most relevant today is perhaps the Corpus Inscriptionum Latin arum, a collection of Roman inscriptions he contributed to the Berlin Academy.

Roman Provinces under the Empire, 1884. History of Rome: Mommsen’s most famous work appeared in three volumes between 1854 and 1856, and exposed Roman history up to the end of the Roman republic and the rule of Julius Caesar. He closely compared the political thought and terminology of the late Republic, with the situation of his own time (the nation-state, democracy and incipent imperialism). It is one of the great classics of historical works. Mommsen never wrote a continuation of his Roman history to incorporate the imperial period. Notes taken during his lectures on the Roman Empire between 1863 and 1886 were published (in 1992) under the title, A History of Rome Under the Emperors. In 1885, a presentation of the Roman provinces in the imperial period appeared as volume 5 of Roman History (The Provinces of the Roman Empire from Caesar to Diocletian). There was no volume 4. The work has also received some criticism, accusing him of “journalism,” and in 1931 Egon Friedell argued that in his hands “Crassus becomes a speculator in the manner of Louis Philippe, the brothers Gracchus are Socialist leaders, and the Gallians are Indians, etc.”

While he was secretary of the Historical-Philological Class at the Berlin Academy (1874-1895), Mommsen organized countless scientific projects, mostly editions of original sources. At the beginning of his scientific career, Mommsen already envisioned a collection of all known ancient Latin inscriptions when he published the inscriptions of the Neapolitan Kingdom (1852). He received additional impetus and training from Bartolomeo Borghesi of San Marino. The complete Corpus Inscriptionum Latin arum would consist of sixteen volumes. Fifteen of them appeared in Mommsen’s lifetime and he wrote five of them himself. The basic principle of the edition (contrary to previous collections) was the method of “autopsy” (which in Greek means literally “to see for oneself”), according to which all copies (that is, modern transcriptions) of inscriptions were to be checked and compared to the original.

Mommsen published the fundamental collections in Roman law: the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Codex Theodosianus. Furthermore, he played an important role in the publication of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the edition of the texts of the Church Fathers, the Limes Romanus (Roman frontiers) research and countless other projects. Mommsen was a delegate to the Prussian House of Representatives from 1863–66 and again from 1873–79, and delegate to the Reichstag from 1881–1884, at first for the liberal German Progress Party (Deutsche Fortschrittspartei), later for the National Liberal Party, and finally for the Secessionists. He was very concerned with questions about scientific and educational policies and held national positions. Disappointed with the politics of the German Empire, regarding whose future he was quite pessimistic, in the end he advised collaboration between Liberals and Social Democrats. Mommsen strongly disagreed with Otto von Bismarck about social policies in 1881, using strong words and narrowly avoided prosecution. In 1879, his colleague Heinrich von Treitschke (the so-called Berliner Antisemitismusstreit) began a political campaign against Jews. Mommsen strongly opposed antisemitism and wrote a harsh pamphlet in which he denounced von Treitschke’s views. Mommson viewed a solution to antisemitism in the voluntary cultural assimilation of the Jews, suggesting that they could follow the example of the people of Holstein, Hannover and other German states, which gave up some of the special customs when integrating in Prussia. Pommsen was a violent supporter of German nationalism, maintaining a militant attitude towards the Slavic nations.

His perspective on Roman history was colored by his experiences with the Revolutions of 1848, causing him to disdain the Roman Senate and Cicero in favor of Julius Caesar, whose leadership he clearly admired. [7] Fellow Nobel Laureate (1925) George Bernard Shaw cited Mommsen’s interpretation of the last First Consul of the Republic, Julius Caesar, as one of the inspirations for his 1898 (1905 on Broadway) play, Caesar and Cleopatra. The playwright Heiner Müller wrote a “performance text” entitled Mommsens Block (1993), inspired by the publication of Mommsen’s fragmentary notes on the later Roman empire and by the East German government’s decision to replace a statue of Karl Marx outside the Humboldt University of Berlin with one of Mommsen. Perhaps his most important legacy was his ability to bring to life the pages of Roman history in his writing, which was not only well-researched but also very well written. For his writing he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903. The Nobel committee was considering giving the award to Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, but apparently believed some of his later views to be too radical and settled on Mommsen instead. Mommsen was the second recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature after Sully Prudhomme, and the first non-fiction writer to receive the award. Died: November 1, 1903, Charlo enburg, near Berlin, Germany (aged 85).

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Pieter Zeeman was born to Catharinus Forandinus Zeeman and Wilhelmina Zeeman on 25, May, 1865 in a tiny village located in Schouwen-Duiveland in Netherlands. Zeeman’s father was a clergyman in the village. Pieter Zeeman was educated at his local school in Zierikzee and displayed a deep interest in the sciences from an early age. In 1883, he created an illustration of Aurora Borealis that took place that year and the illustration was published by the British scientific journal ‘Nature’. After passing high school at the age of 18 in 1883, he was sent to Delft in order to learn the classical languages and he had to learn those languages since it was a compulsory requirement for anyone willing to go to university. After completing his training in the classical languages, Zeeman enrolled at the University of Leiden in 1885. He was taught physics by such luminaries of the time as Hendrik Lorentz and before long he worked as Lorentz’s assistant at the university.

It was in the year 1893 that Pieter Zeeman presented his doctoral thesis at the University of Leiden and the subject was Kerr effect. He was awarded his doctorate and spent some time at Friedrich Kohlrausch Institute located in Strasbourg but he returned to take up the position of a Privatdozent or senior research and teacher at the University of Leiden. His father was a Lutheran minister named Catharinus Farandinus Zeeman and his mothers name was Wilhelmina Worst. It was his mother who attended to his elementary education. He attended secondary school in Zierikzee, a town a few miles from his home. He had a strong desire to attend University, for which he had to study the classical languages.

During the 19th century important connections between electricity, magnetism and light were clarified by Hendrik Lorentz. It also became apparent that different substances emit and absorb light having certain fixed wavelengths. Every substance has a characteristic spectrum of lines. In 1896 Pieter Zeeman studied how light was affected by magnetic fields. It turned out that under the influence of a magnetic field, the lines in a spectrum split up into several lines. The phenomenon could be explained by the electron theory formulated by Pieter Zeeman’s mentor, Hendrik Lorentz.

After Zeeman passed the qualification exams in 1885, he studied physics at the University of Leiden under Kamerlingh Onnes and Hendrik Lorentz. In 1890, even before finishing his thesis, he became Lorentz’s assistant. This allowed him to participate in a research programme on the Kerr effect. In 1893 he submitted his doctoral thesis on the Kerr effect, the reflection of polarized light on a magnetized surface. After obtaining his doctorate he went for half a year to Friedrich Kohlrausch’s institute in Strasbourg. In 1895, after returning from Strasbourg, Zeeman became Privatdozent in mathematics and physics in Leiden.

A new laboratory built in 1923 allowed Zeeman to continue to study the Zeeman effect. The laboratory was renamed the Zeeman Laboratory in 1940. For the remainder of his career he remained interested in research in Magneto-Optics. He also studied the propagation of light in moving media. This became important because of study into special relativity, and enjoyed keen interest from Lorentz and Einstein. Later in his career he became interested in mass spectrometry.

And after a couple of years he finally entered the University of Leyden in 1885. Zeeman was a student of Hendrik Lorentz at the University of Leyden. He began lecturing at the University Leyden in 1890. In 1896, at the request of Lorentz, he began investigating the effect of magnetic fields on a light source and discovered what is now known as the Zeeman effect. This discovery proved Lorentz theory of electromagnetic radiation. Zeeman was appointed professor at Amsterdam and director of their physical institute. It is by way of the Zeeman Effect that astronomers cam measure the strength of the magnetic field on the surface of the sun, or other stars. Scientists were not able to fully understand the Effect until the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. In 1902, Zeeman and Lorentz were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for their, extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomenon.

Zeeman Effect : What Zeeman effect is?  The Zeeman effect is the split of an spectral line into several components in the presence of a magnetic field. In most atoms, there exist several electronic configurations that have the same energy, so that transitions between different pairs of configurations correspond to a single line. The presence of a magnetic field breaks the degeneracy, since it interacts in a different way with electrons with different quantum numbers, slightly modifying their energies. The result is that, where there were several configurations with the same energy, now there are different energies, that give rise to several very close spectral lines.

Zeeman Spectral Splitting : The pattern and amount of splitting are a signature that a magnetic field is present, and of its strength. The splitting is associated with what is called the orbital angular momentum quantum number L of the atomic level. This quantum number can take non-negative integer values. The number of split levels in the magnetic field is 2 * L + 1.

Polarization of Spectral Lines  : The lines corresponding to Zeeman splitting also exhibit polarization effects. Polarization has to do with the direction in which the electromagnetic fields are vibrating. This in turn, can have an effect on whether the spectral light can be observed. For example, polarizing sunglasses are often effective in suppressing ambiant glare because light reflected from surfaces has a particular polarization and polarizing sunglasses are designed to not pass that polarization of light.

Pieter Zeeman is considered among the foremost physicists of his time and during his career he worked on a lot of concepts; however it was his work on spectral lines that came to be known as the ‘Zeeman Effect’ that is without doubt his greatest work. He shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.

Pieter Zeeman is Awards & Achievements. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 1902 along with Hendrik Lorentz for his work on the Zeeman Effect. Zeeman was awarded the Matteucci Medal in 1912 In 1921, Zeeman won the Henry Draper Medal. The Royal Society awarded Zeeman the Rumford Medal in 1922. The Franklin Institute awarded Zeeman the Franklin Medal in 1925.

Awards and honors : Zeeman received the following awards for his contributions. Nobel Prize for Physics (1902) Matteucci Medal (1912) Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921. Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences (1921) Rumford Medal (1922) Franklin Medal (1925) The crater Zeeman on the Moon is named in his honour.

Outside his field of study Zeeman showed much interest in literature and the stage. An entertaining host, he loved to invite his collaborators and pupils to dine with him at his home, an event preceded by a learned talk in his study and followed by a gathering in the family circle. Zeeman married Johanna Elisabeth Lebret in 1895; they had one son and three daughters. During the last year of his professorship he suffered from ill-health. He died after a short illness on October 9, 1943.

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Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, the anti-fascist Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the most known exponents of the so called Exilliteratur.

He is considered one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Thomas Mann’s novels, novellas and essays not only left a lasting mark on German literature, they also established him as a global literary figure. Translated into almost 40 languages, his works such as Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, Joseph and His Brothers and Doctor Faustus have sold millions of copies. They combine precise social analysis with philosophical depth, subtle irony and a complex linguistic style.

Born on 6 June 1875 in Lübeck, Thomas Mann grew up in a wealthy merchant family. After the death of his father in 1891 and the liquidation of the company, the family moved to Munich, where Mann immersed himself in the literary scene. His extraordinary talent became apparent early on, such as in the novella Little Herr Friedemann (1898). In 1905 he married Katia Pringsheim, who was from a wealthy Jewish family. With their six children – including Klaus and Erika Mann, who became successful authors in their own right – the Mann family developed over the decades into a kind of intellectual dynasty .

Mann began his writing career in Munich, where he worked as an editor for a satirical magazine. His early works, including “Buddenbrooks” (1901) and “Death in Venice” (1912), established him as a major literary talent. These novels explored themes of decadence, sexuality, and the conflict between art and life. During World War I, Mann initially supported Germany’s war efforts. However, his views changed over time, and he became increasingly critical of German nationalism. This shift in perspective was reflected in his monumental novel “The Magic Mountain” (1924), which examined the intellectual and cultural climate of pre-war Europe.

In 1933, with the rise of Nazi Germany, Mann and his family left Germany for Switzerland. He later moved to the United States, where he became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime. During World War II, Mann made radio broadcasts to Germany, urging resistance against Hitler’s government.

The novels on which Mann was working throughout this period reflect variously the cultural crisis of his times. In 1933 he published The Tales of Jacob (U.S. title, Joseph and His Brothers), the first part of his four-part novel on the biblical Joseph, continued the following year in The Young Joseph and two years later with Joseph in Egypt, and completed with Joseph the Provider in 1943. In the complete work, published as Joseph and His Brothers, Mann reinterpreted the biblical story as the emergence of mobile, responsible individuality out of the tribal collective, of history out of myth, and of a human God out of the unknowable. In the first volume a timeless myth seems to be reenacted in the lives of the Hebrews. Joseph, however, though sustained by the belief that his life too is the reenactment of a myth, is thrown out of the “timeless collective” into Egypt, the world of change and history, and there learns the management of events, ideas, and himself. Though based on wide and scholarly study of history, the work is not a historical novel, and the “history” is full of irony and humour, of conscious modernization. Mann’s concern is to provide a myth for his own times, capable of sustaining and directing his generation and of restoring a belief in the power of humane reason.

After the war, Mann returned to Europe, settling in Switzerland. He continued to write, producing works such as “Doctor Faustus” (1947), which used the story of a composer to explore Germany’s descent into Nazism. Mann’s later years were marked by public recognition of his literary achievements and his role as a moral voice in post-war Europe. Throughout his life, Mann struggled with his sexuality, a theme that appeared in his works and was later revealed in his posthumously published diaries. This and other personal experiences often informed his writing, contributing to the depth and complexity of his characters. Mann’s work was influenced by earlier German writers and philosophers, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Nietzsche. In turn, his novels and essays had a significant impact on 20th-century literature and thought.

In 1905 Mann married Katja Pringsheim. There were six children of the marriage, which was a happy one. It was this happiness, perhaps, that led Mann, in Royal Highness, to provide a fairy-tale reconciliation of “form” and “life,” of degenerate feudal authority and the vigour of modern American capitalism. In 1912, however, he returned to the tragic dilemma of the artist with Death in Venice, a sombre masterpiece. In this story, the main character, a distinguished writer whose nervous and “decadent” sensibility is controlled by the discipline of style and composition, seeks relaxation from overstrain in Venice, where, as disease creeps over the city, he succumbs to an infatuation and the wish for death. Symbols of eros and death weave a subtle pattern in the sensuous opulence of this tale, which closes an epoch in Mann’s work. Mann was the greatest German novelist of the 20th century, and by the end of his life his works had acquired the status of classics both within and without Germany. His subtly structured novels and shorter stories constitute a persistent and imaginative enquiry into the nature of Western bourgeois culture, in which a haunting awareness of its precariousness and threatened disintegration is balanced by an appreciation of and tender concern for its spiritual achievements. Round this central theme cluster a group of related problems that recur in different forms—the relation of thought to reality and of the artist to society, the complexity of reality and of time, the seductions of spirituality, eros, and death. Mann’s imaginative and practical involvement in the social and political catastrophes of his time provided him with fresh insights that make his work rich and varied. His finely wrought essays, notably those on Tolstoy, Goethe, Freud, and Nietzsche, record the intellectual struggles through which he reached the ethical commitment that shapes the major imaginative works.

When the Great War broke out, the “European” Heinrich and the “German” Thomas found themselves in profound and public opposition.  Heinrich pessimistically attacked Germany’s disastrous role in the war, while the misguided Thomas, who had previously evaded military service, became the self-appointed spiritual spokesman for the “detested” nation. Thomas won the Nobel Prize in 1929.  The publication of the first volume of his Joseph and His Brothers tetralogy during the Nazi regime in 1933 provoked violent attacks from German émigrés and he was eventually forced to take a political stand.  As Hamilton remarks: “The urge to be involved—to cast aside questions of Nobel dignity or literary reputation—was a sign of courage; and without that courage, that pride, could Thomas have ever survived the years of physical and spiritual deprivation in exile, the envy and sniping that would dog him until death?”

Thomas Mann reached the height of his fame in the 1920s and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929, primarily for his early novel Buddenbrooks (see below). Although he considered himself politically conservative for a long time, Thomas Mann became an advocate of democracy during the period of the Weimar Republic. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he was forced to leave Germany. Initially moving to Switzerland, he later moved to the USA, where he obtained American citizenship and actively campaigned against the Nazi regime. Under the title “German listeners!”, his radio speeches were aimed at the German population, openly calling on them to put up resistance to Hitler. Of his role in exile he said: “Where I am is where Germany is”. After the war he returned to Europe and lived mainly in Switzerland, where he died on 12 August 1955.

Richard Winston (1917-79), who translated Mann’s Letters, was ideally suited to write Thomas Mann: The Making of an Artist, 1875-1911 (1982).  Though he did not interview many people who knew Mann and rarely refers to unpublished letters and diaries, he has a clearer focus than Peter de Mendelssohn’s massively detailed German biography, Der Zauberer (“The Magician”).  Winston has a thorough knowledge of Mann’s works, a mastery of the social and literary life of Wilhelmine Germany, and an elegant prose style.  He’s particularly good on the relationship of the life to the fiction.  He provides sensitive readings of early stories such as “Tristan” and “Blood of the Walsungs”; notes that “even at his simplest and most youthful, Mann was complex and mature”; and is excellent on the genesis of the partly  autobiographical Buddenbrooks.

Between 1978 and 2002 six writers — three English, two American and one German — published Lives of Thomas Mann (1875-1955).  These biographers also had other interests and achievements.  Nigel Hamilton wrote military and presidential histories.  Richard Winston translated Mann and wrote lives of Charlemagne and Thomas Beckett.  Ronald Hayman was a dramatist and actor.  Donald Prater, soldier and diplomat, wrote lives of Rilke and Stefan Zweig.  Anthony Heilbut, rather incongruously, produced records of gospel music.  Hermann Kurzke was a Catholic theologian and professor at the University of Mainz. In The Brothers Mann (1978), Nigel Hamilton (born 1944) convincingly argues that Thomas and Heinrich Mann had the most significant literary brotherhood of all time.  In their  lives “German history was mirrored—and borne out—in all its agony.  From outright mutual hostility in the First World War they became reconciled, stood with consistent courage for democracy in an age of rising fascism, and presided over the German émigré movement in exile.”  Hamilton is perceptive about the relationship of the brothers—the dominant theme of the book—as it moves from rivalry, jealousy and ideological conflict to mature friendship and mutual respect.

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