Interview with HERMAN F. MARK Polytechnic Institute of New York Brooklyn, New York 11201
Herman F. Mark edited by
ROBERT C. BRASTED University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota
PETER F A R A G O Burlington House London. England
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hfessor MaK in a research career smnnina - almost sixty years you have published over five hundred original and review articles, and foundeda research institute adseveral j o m l s . Y w w e on ihe g w n d floor of a new research frontier, and are, probably, polymer chemistry's leading spokesman. Yet for a scientist who belongs to over seventeen academies and has received over seventeen medals and awards, you seem very untwched. Is this whyyolnassociates affectionately refer to youas "der Geheimrat ?" The title implies, to me, what you are not, a stuNy, pompous, haughty character. That is right, they call me that because they trust me. Please tell us about your early life. 1was born in 1895, andgrew up in Vienna. My father was a general practitioner. Vienna, in those days, had a large number of parks. My brother and I joined a f e l l club when I was ten years OM,anda linle later a tennis club. When I was 15, we started to climb mountains and ski. Even at that time skiing was very popular in Austria. It only became popular in this countvaffer World Warll. There. /mew - UD. in .Dublic schools and )ugh school DOany individuals standoufas havino influenced vou towards science as a career? A friend, Gerhard Gersch, who became a physics professor at the University of Vienna,and I were attracted equally by a particular teacher. The teacher was a priest n a d Lawati who understood very well how to catch our imagination. He taught zoology, botany, and later on chemisiry. With his lectures and. especially, the experiments, he was the man who interested us in the natural sciences and chemistry in particular. I understand that you were quite a home experimentalist. We fooled around quite a bit, yes. The fact that my father was a medical doctor and got along well with the pharmacist helped us. We could get ingredients such as acetone, glycerol, and sulfur and actually carry out experiments. My mother wasn't too happy abouf i t but she wouldgo along. Whet did you do when you graduated horn high schwI7 ljoined the Army. High schoolga&~teshad to s p d a year in the Army, and then they were reviewed for
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promotion to lieutenant. So leniistedin 19 15,and was sent to South Tirol to a regiment in the mountains. I went to beautiful Lake G&da where we had a wonderful thw through the falland wintw. We thought that it( World War 0 would be over in a year, then came the big disappointment. in July we were transported to Grecia to sfandguardagainsta Russian invasion. Afiw the invasion began I was wounded in the right leg. That was September, 1916. Wweyou decorated in these actions? Yes, I received two mdals for bravery--only because I didn't run away as fast as the others. Affera few months of convalescence,you were then sent to the Italian front. Yes, it was obvious that Italy woulddeclare war. We were trwps tramed for mountein fighmg; therefore, we went to ltaly. There was a lot of fighting. Fmt high in the mountains then down in the v&eG. In the summer of 1918, you led three hundred men In a fierce counieraiiack on a ridge called Zugna Toria. The bank for years meant to Austrians what Swibachi does to Americans. For those actions you were awarded Austria's highest honor, Lhe Leopolds Orden. In fact, you were Austria's most decorated companyqrade officer and quite a celebrity. Yes, there were a4 kinds of medab fw bravery--high ones for officers-and in the end I was a lieutenant first grade. Your experiences in an ltalian prison certainly indicated that a different worid existed in 1918. True, when we surrendered. we were transwrted to southern Italy when, about 150 officers were kept in an old convent. We hada good life. Most of us used the time to study languages. The Malians offered to send a lieutenant to Rome to buy books. We gave a lono list of h k s . since we w l d for them with our own money. Where did you get money? Wegot oursalary while we were in pison. The armies exchanged pay . . for the respeotive orisoners. Afier learning that your father was ill, you bribedan Italian guard and escaped to Vienna. Did you then begin your formal study of chemistry? Yes. I continued study in September, 1919. 1say I continued study because I starred during the winter of 1915 in Vienna when I was in the hospital with my
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wn+s. At mat time yw coddmake three semesters a year, so 1wuld complete my PhD in two years. Fmm 19f 9 to f92f. i studied with &ofesw W. Schlenlr in physical chemistry andgraduated in July, f921. Your perserverance in achieving your dream is by itselfa story W h relating. What didyoudo with your newdearee? Profess& Schlenk was offered a chair at Berlin as successor to Emile Fischer. He took four of his bovs a i m , and I went as an inshrctor A fief a year he sad, "why don't you ao out to the Kaiser Wilheim Institute with Fritz i a b e i " Haber, the inventor of the Haber ammonia synthesis process, offered me a job as a Research Fellow. What was the nature of your work? I was assigned to the Fiber Research Institufe. The director, Professor Herzog, told me to investigate nahrral fibers by X-my diffraction. The technique was new then and had never been applied outside of cr~stalslike diamond or calclte. We showed that cell~losefibers were semi-crystailine. Pad was a crystalandpart was amorphorus. it was new and interesting, and i had a lot of invitations to lecture at other places. Did you investigate the structure of the amilable synthetic fibers? Frofessor Haber called me one day, and said, "You have investigaied ihe basic shrchrre of mhnai fibers. As w know. Germanv is buildino an indushv of synthetic fibers. Dr. Kurt Meyer, wiil be here tomormw, andhe wanb to speak to you. An, vou inieresied in assuming a job in indusiry?" 1joined I. G.Farbenlndusirie in January, 1927. KuH Meyergave me several months to traveland visit oiheiscientistand the planb where fibers were being made: he gave me space, organic chemists, physical chemists, and engineers. How large a staff did you build up? About twenty. We started a symposium series, and brouoht " in outside scientists for stimulation. We had Staudinger. Debye. Hertzog, Hess, Kuhn. Whoever was womineni. OM first job was to .wt our knowlec!~ . Of natural fibers transplanfed to what was then synthetic fibers. They were manmade from cellulose, therefore, manmade, not true synthetic fibers. What was the status of the true synthetic materials? Staudinger had already prepared polystyrene. Polvmethyl methacrylate, polyacrylonitrile, polyvinyl chloride, and a number of polyamides and polyesters had also been prepared. Some were rubbery, and some were moldable or fiber formers. li dawned on us that they were one in the same thing. All you needed to do was synthesize a long chainmolec"le, and depending on the structure it would be a rubber wpl&ic. .That, in those days was a very important contribution. Afienvards, the first huly synthetic rubbers. Bum-S and Buna-N were prepared by I. G. Farben. The pepamtion of these tubbers was the first CoDOlvmerizations carried out with sodium ias the iniiiator). Natrlom is the German word for sodium so the material was calied13una-N. Buna-N was a butadieneacrylonitrile copolymer, andBunaSa copolymer of butadiene-styrene. When did you first investigate peroxides as polymerization initiators? You see the argument was this. The rubber tree doesn't use sodium yet if still makes rubber. So lei's see what happens in fhe rubber free. We investigated. actoally went to the botanic garden in Frankfufl, and analyzed rubber tree sap. We, of course, found enzymes doing the job in nature. So we said. "AN right,
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84 1 Journal of Chemical Education
these must be oxidizing agents." We investigated Demxides in emulsions, and the emulsion polymerization of Bum-Nand S was initiated. Staht
If polymer chemishy was born in the 1930's and 1940'3, your laboratory must have servedas its cradie.
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During this period there was one laboratory in the United States, the duPont laboratory of (Wallace) Canthers, working on lwlvmers. tie wasn'tata mlversify and therefore did-not produce siudents. h England, there was Harry Melvilleat Cambridge.and in Germany was Hermann Staudinger. Our laboratory in Vienna made only three laboratories in the world producing students.
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in those early y e w , was it difficult to promote the concept of high molecular weight macromolecules?
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The ideas were gradually accepted, not suddenlv. Staudinger started to talk in t 9 ~ 0and , we staned 1922. (hen Melville in 1924. We were ail talking and tal!fing. Some listeners said it was nonsense, am? others just didn't listen. I wouldsay that by 1940 everyone accepted the concept of long-chained molecules. It took about thirtv . .vears of work before Hermann Siaudinger received the recognition he deserved in the 1953 Nobel Prize. Yes, and he surely deserved it, because so many other organic chemists and physical chemists said, "7his iS just not hue." Iremember when Wilheim said the concept of a molecular weight of 100,000 was impossibli. When we asked himwhy, he only replied that for an organic chemist it was impossible. h those days, youandStaudingerdidn'talwaysagree did you? You see, it was like ihis. We boM favwedfhe " c e p t of long-chained molecules. He did, on the basis of ocwnic chemistw: and I did. on the basis of X-rav diffraction. He only trusted organic chemistry. I saib trust both(techniques); we have two methods which do not contradict. My God. they c w M have contradicted! There was a true argument when we said the chains were flexible. He was sure that they were stiff, and nothing could convince him otherwise. Of course, he was wrong. Paul Flory has worked out the last details of shape and conformation of these macromolecules. l see that you iefi I. G. Farben in 1932. Yes, in 1932 when the Nazis took over G e m n v I thought it would be better to disappear. I went to the University of Vienna as a Professor where work continued preny much along the same lines. We studied polymerization mechanisms, initiation, propagation, termination,and branching. Things went on quite well until 1938. What happened then? h 1936-37 it became obvious that Austria couidnot exist indeoendent of Germanv-and Hitler. I am one-half Jewish, and you never knew what they would do.l w t in touch wath the C a d i a n 1ntemat;onaIP a ~ e r CO&Y. The director of the company w m toking Europe, hiring chemists. That was the Fall of '37, and {agreed to finish the school year, andmove to C a d by the Fall of '38. lam afraid that lhad misjudged the conditions, and Hitler came in March, much~earlier than anyone expected. You could get no more than $10 or $15af the bank, and I couldn't say i wanted to immigrate. So. Istaried to buyplatinum wire. This was easy fora chemist. My wife msde coat hangers fmm the wire. With a visa to Switzerland, we lefi Austria
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b May andspent May in Switzwiand, June in France, and July-August in Englandand then on to Canada. I worked there until 1940 when I joined Brooklyn Poiytech. I am still a consultant with international Paper. Were you the firstpoiymer chemist hiredat Brooklyn Poiytech, or did "polymer" chemists exist in 1940. Yes. I was the first buf I imported the wofd "polymer.'" Carothers (at duPonf) was one of the best polymer chemists ever, but he was not in academic circles. He did not go out and give lectures, so he did not propagate polymer chemistry. You were hiredas a Professor of Organic Chemisfry. How did this allow you to establish the Polymer Research institute? At the Polytechnic institute was a Shellac Bureau. Most of the nation's imp& of shsllac come Nvough New Ymk-in fact Brooklyn. FmfeSSOIW. H W n e r was director of the &Keau and I became his assistant. He was interested in a natural poiymer, shellac, and 1was interested in synthetic poiymers. We agreed to join forces. A year later World War N began, andDr. Gardner went to Washingtonina govemmentposiibn. Then I became director of the Shellac Bureau. As time went by we worked more and more on synthetic polymem One day, I went to our Dean andsuggested we call i t a Poiymer Research Institute. li was named officiaNy in 1946. Whendidyou teach the first course ingemlpotj9ner chemistry? Oh. about 1940. About that time on Gibson Island (MNatkf) there were conferences being held every summer on various topics. Weren't the Gibson island Conferences the forerunners of today's extensive Gordon Conferences? Yes, they were. Thete are now more than eighty Gordan Conferences,but in 1937 there were only two. One on petroleum chemistry and the other on fibers. Who originated the Gibson Island Conferences? The summer weeks were soonsored bv Johns Horn kins U. as suggested by Or Gordon, first editor of the JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION. Gibson bland is on ChesapeakeBay, south of Baltimore. h 1940, I got in touch with Dr. Gordon and told him that we needed a polymer conference. Then Milton Harris and I suggested a textile conference, and a year later a rubber conference. When were the conferences renamed "Gordon C o n f e r ~ s",and moved io their present site in New Hampshire? The war interrupted them, and Dr. Gordon died. His grave is in New Hampshire, where they were resumed, and called Gordon Conferences. You and your cohorts presentedyour findings at the Conferences, the Polyiechnic Institute's Summer Courses, and through the lecture circuit. Did the shortage of &en polymer Iiteraiurecause any majci problems? As teaching grew, research grew, and everyone in industrv became interested in doing someihinq in the p o i y h r field. Then came the question of lit.&ature. We felt the first thing should be a series of monographs. Get books into their hands and they could learn from those books. The first volume of the mwwgraphs, called the HI@ Poiymw Series, was the collected papers of Carothers. Now we are up to fortyeight volumes. Anda journal? The next thino was the iournai. because the Journal of the ~rneri&n chemical Society (JACS)wasa iinie leery of taking in too many polymer manuscripts.
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Noyes was editorat that time. We went to himabout our difficunies. There werea lot of manuscripts, and they interested only a small part of the chemists. I thought it would be a good idea if the American Chemical Society started a journal on polymer chemishy. He feH the volume ofpapws, a W e d p w year, wasn't enough for the Society. We decided to do it ourselves. The Journal of Polymer Science was born. Was the Journalan overnight success? h the first years, we hada very hard time because we didn'thave enough (participation)to fill it up. Now, i h an avalanche. In 1953. we branched into the Journal of Applied Polymer Science, and ten years later the Journal of Polymer Science branched into chemistry, physics. and lefiers editions. Now we publish 15,000 paqes a year1 . . . From k start with the OriginaiJoumal what is the total volume of polymer Iiteraiure? At least 60,000 pages. I don't think that we are m e than one-fou~hof the total. Now the ACS feels it is worihwhile to have a journal. They publish Macromolecules, a good one. Were there anv factors which made the studv of polymer chemistry especially amactive? The most anractive feature was that the entire field was new. You had to stari from scratch; there were few existing boundaries. R was very aiiractive for young people. People like Tobolsky, Zimm, Frisch. Overberger, andMasrobian. They couldhave worked in anvarea, but were enthused bv . .wlvmer . chemistrv because of its fundamental aspects and practical applications. Today, in the background of aN this is medicine. We, afier a#, are made up of macromoiecuies. Synthetic proteins research, the .@?geneticc d e and so i n . No one would have dared approach that work with the basic polymer work. Have you any sirong feelings about today's American educational system, andhow itpremres studenis for . . tomorrow's &allenges? The American education system is a spechum from very bad to excellent. From the point of view of d e m r a t i c philosophy, we can't just cut off here, and say ail below is lousy. We have to take itas is, just as democracy means we must suffer many things we do not want to. But. if vou consider the middle oniversities, and I'm talking about chemistry, physics, and bkxhemistry, they are excellent,as o o d a s anwvhere in the world. Are there any structure changes in a chemisfry department, or even university that you might recommend? I have the following feeling. / M w i n be very desirable in many departments to have a closer cooperation of the professors. As each professor has a liitle empire, and he is in close contact with his assistants and students but has verv little communicationbetween empires. He rarelysees the guy next door. We should have what works weN in England. They have tea everyday where they can visit andmeet each other. We have had it in the Polymer Research Institute, with coffee instead of tea. You were married in 1922. 1married my wife. Mimi. in Berlin. in Ludwigshafen, my sons Hans and Peter were born in 1929 and 1931. Have your interests and accomplishments had an effect on the professionalaccomplishments of your sons? In Vienna, they loved to come io the labwatory. They were imbued with the atmosphere of the chemical laboratory, and it kept their anention. h Canada they Volume 56, Number 2 February 1979 / 85
loved to runaround ihe mill. They grew up with technology. h Brooklyn. they came to the Institute every weekeM, and, in fact, wanted to sfudy chemistry. After a year of study each came to me, and said, "I orefer ohvsics.. and I want to studv it. " Thev did. Those who know you well, are amazedat your range ofactivities andphysicalsiamina. h this mversation, we have seen a number of the hats that you have worn. What major non-professional activities do you feel have most enrichedyow life? Life in the natural environment, remain in touch with nature. Whether it is swimming, sailing, boating. h i k i a skiing, mwniain climbing, w fishing, andlhave done all of these, remain in touch with nature. What can be gained from these activities? Relaxation and ideas. Myou are relaxed, you willget ideas. As far as lam concerned,music is something dear and necessary. At 82 years, in what activities are you still engaged? I usually spend23 weeks in he Canibean swimming and looking, anddo some moderate hiking wherever I mighf be. I travel quite a bit. I s p d a third of my time here as editor of the Journal of Polymer Science, a third lecturing in the United States, and a third abroad. A list of chemists who have worked for and with you is a who's who of chemistry What do you look for in a young research program?
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The most important thing is scientific cwiosify. Then you teach this person to be a carefulexperlmentalist. Not aN can become skillful, but all can be careful. The student must learn to be able toperform mahematical manipulations. Do you see any changes in the iraits necessary to be a good scientist today, as compared to the past? Not a bit. I'll tell you, young people of today are as good as they w e e 20 or even 50 years ago. As aC ways, they just need to be infected with enthusiasm. May Iplace youon the hot seat? Please review what you think ihe impact of your work is on chemistry. Awards, acknowiedgment, these are the results of gening old. If you go back through the years the effects (of one's work) willbe less. Compared to today, in 1970 the effect will be less. and in 1960 linle. As for my successes, lihink two things were responsible. First. I worked in a new field. We were there in the beginning, and I and others helped it grow. Most i m portantly, it grew. The second thing, I had a great advantage in my field of alternating between academic instituiions and industry. Therefore.I was able to tell people about polymers, and they believed me because they knew that I had been there. You sir, are too modest. It is no wonder your associates jokingly call you "der Geheimrat."
