JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
HERMAN FRANCIS MARK GERALD OSTER Polytechnic Institute of BrooIrlyn, BrooIrlp, New York
WHEN Herman Mark came to the Polytechnic Institute in 1940 a t the age of 45, he quickly gathered about him a group of workers including Goldfinger, Fankuchen, Stern, Hohenstein, Alfrey, Doty, and Zimm, to study the structure of macromolecules and their behavior in solution. With only a minimum of space and equipment this group transformed itself within five years into the present Institute for Polymer Research. This institute attracts students and research workers from all over the world and has had a vrofound influence on research and applications of high polymeric molecules in the United States and abroad. To understand the impetus which Mark gave to this branch of chemistry, wemust trace out his varied career and the contributions which he has made to science. After the first world war, when Mark, then a young lieutenant in the Austrian Army, was released from a prisoner of war camp in Italy, he enrolled as an organic chemistry major a t the University of Vienna. His university career was brilliant and was perhaps rivaled only by that of his schoolmate, Richard Kuhn. Receiving his doctorate in 1921 under Schlenk with highest honors, he then went to the University of Berlin as an instructor and after one year moved to the Kaiser Wilhelrn Institut fiir Faserstoffe. This institute was the first to study the stmcture of natural high polymers by means of X-rays. Here Mark carried out X-ray diffraction studies of polymers with Polanyi and others and worked out the structure of graphite with Hassel. Mark then made fundamental studies with Kallman and Ehrenburg of the optical properties of X - r a ~ t h edispersion, refraction, and reflection of X-rays and the Compton effect. In 1926 Mark joined the staff of the research laboratories of I. G. Farben in Ludwigshafen where he carried out his classical studies with K. H. Meyer and others on the structure of cellulose and other natural high polymers. Their collaborative research is contained in their famous book "Der Aufbau der hochpolymeren organischen Naturstoffe." During the same period he collaborated with Wierl in applying the then new electron diffraction technique to molecules. They were the first to obtain interatomic distances in molecules by electron diffraction.
In 1932 he was appointed Director of the First Chemical Institute a t the University of Vienna where he stayed until 1938. The work a t that institute was concerned with three main aspects of high polymer chemistry. First, there was the work with Raff and Dostal on the kinetics of addition polymerization. Second, there was the work a-ith Guth on the statistics of rubber-like molecules and the mechanical properties of mbber, and third, there was the work with Simha, Guth, and Eirich on the hydrodynamics of high polymeric molecules in solution. After his dismissal by the Nazis, Mark went to Canada to become Research Manager of the International Paper Company in Ontario. At that time he initiated the series of monographs on high polymers for the Interscience Publishers commencing with the collected works of W. H. Carothers. In 1940 Mark left Canada for the United States and joined the faculty of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Since the war he and his group a t the Institute have continued studies on polymerization kinetics, copolymers, catalysts, and the properties of polymers in solution. He is co-editor with Doty of the Journal of Polymer Science and is active in organizing numerous conferences on high polymers for the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, the American Chemical Society, and the Gordon Research Conferences. He carries on an extensive correspondence with scientists the world over and is always available for students as well as advanced research scientists to advise and to suggest ideas which might be helpful. Mark has always taken a strong interest in students, both undergraduate and graduate. He once served on the Board of Education of the City of Vienna and is very active within the Chemistry Department of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. His lectures on polymer chemistry and the history of chemistry are extremely popular with the students. In the latter course he examines the researches which led 60 modem concepts in chemistry. He is able to do this with authority since he himself has promoted many of these advances or Was in personal contact during the past quarter century with many of the scientists while they were carrying out their classical researches.
