Hermann Staudinger Father of Modern Polymer Science

Abstract

Staudinger’s importance to the development of Polymer Chemistry rests on a threefold activity which he maintained with never failing enthusiasm for more than 30 years: as a scientist, as a teacher, and as a preacher. Guided by true scientific curiosity for the unknown, Staudinger selected as the work of his life, in the early 1930’s, a field which, at that time, was hardly considered to be a worthy goal for an organic chemist of his reputation — the study of the natural organic substances of high molecular weight. Until then, Staudinger had cultivated typical problems of classical chemistry with well-defined substances which could be characterized by such standard methods as melting and boiling point, freezing point depression, and boiling point elevation.

High ideals, creative imagination, and hard work were never more splendidly and more deservedly rewarded than in the case of the many whose memory I am recalling for you.