Suess, Hans Eduard

BornVienna, (Austria), 16 December 1909

DiedSan Diego, California, USA, 20 September 1993

Austrian-American chemist and physicist Hans Suess, together with Harold Urey , compiled the table of abundances of the elements and isotopes in the Solar System that guided Alastair G. W. Cameron and E. Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey R. Burbidge, William Fowler , and Fred Hoyle to understanding the origins of the elements, primarily from nucleosynthesis in stars. Suess was the son of Franz E. Suess (1867–1941), professor of geology at the University of Vienna and grandson of Eduard Suess (1831–1914), author of an important early work in geochemistry, The Face of the Earth, who had held the same position. Hans Suess’s scientific interests were shaped by this background, and he received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1935. After postdoctoral work in chemical institutes at the Swiss Technical University [ETH] and the University of Vienna, he accepted a position at the University...