Erich Hückel

Erich Armand Arthur Joseph Hückel ( born August 9, 1896 in Berlin, † February 16, 1980 in Marburg ) was a German chemist and physicist. He is considered a pioneer of quantum chemistry.

Life

Erich Hückel in 1896 as the average of the three sons of the physician Armand Hückel ( 1860-1927 ) was born. His father had scientific interests and as a private scholar own laboratory. His brothers were Walter Hückel (1895-1973), Professor of Organic Chemistry, and Rudi Hückel (1899-1949), doctor. One of his great-grandfathers was the famous botanist Carl Friedrich von Gärtner (1772-1850), one of his Ururgroßväter the botanist and professor in St. Petersburg Joseph Gardener ( 1732-1791 ).

Hückel went to Göttingen from 1905 to 1914 at the gymnasium and studied from 1914 to 1921 physics and mathematics at the University of Göttingen, where he in 1921 when Peter Debye of the " dispersion of X-rays by anisotropic fluids " doctorate, a job in the wake of the Debye and Paul Scherrer 1916 developed Debye- Scherrer method. The study was interrupted by military service as a research assistant at the Laboratory of Aerodynamic model of Ludwig Prandtl (1916 ) and 1918 when the Navy in Warnemünde Seeflugzeugkommando. After the war he returned to Göttingen and wanted Debye follow at the ETH Zurich, but had to wait a while because of work restrictions in Switzerland. He was a teaching assistant to David Hilbert and assistant to Max Born in Göttingen before he went as assistant to Debye 1922 at the ETH Zurich, where on the then current research area of Debye he worked (theory of strong electrolytes ). In 1925 he habilitated in Debye ( Concentrated solution of aqueous electrolytes). In 1928 he went with a Rockefeller scholarship to the University College London to FC Donnan and then to Copenhagen at Niels Bohr, where his interest in the application of quantum mechanics began on the chemical bond, which he in 1929 when Werner Heisenberg and Friedrich Hund at the University of Leipzig continued where his work on the double bond and the benzene ( 1931) developed the basics of the later so-called HMO theory ( Hückel molecular Orbital theory, Hückelsches molecular orbital method). This work was until much later general recognition, and brought him at that time rather disadvantages, as he moved between the areas of physics and chemistry. He received in 1930 a lecturer in Stuttgart for Physical Chemistry, for which he umhabilitierte with its benzene work. In 1937 he became an associate professor at the University of Marburg. There he had to hold the only theoretical physicist the course lectures - in the war years also the internship for physicians - without him assistantships have been allocated. The work overload meant that he has been putting his research first. In 1947 he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics and he was also an assistant (temporarily mathematician Horst Tietz ). The HMO theory had since become a particularly abroad, Hückel, whose health was also attacked, but could not connect to the current state of research in this field. In 1961 he became a full professor and a year later he retired.

Among his most important scientific achievements include the quantum- theoretical interpretation of the thermodynamic properties of benzene and related to the phrase named after him Hückel approximation of the uA the Hückel rule for defining the aromatic state follows. He also worked in the field of electrochemistry, in particular, was the Debye- Hückel theory.

In 1965 he was awarded the Otto Hahn Prize for Chemistry and Physics.

Hückel was married to Anne Marie ZSIGMONDY, the daughter of the chemistry Nobel laureate Richard ZSIGMONDY, with her he had four children.

Writings

Writing which can not be found on the DNB link below:

• Basic features of the theory of unsaturated and aromatic compounds. Berlin: Verlag Chemie. (From: Journal of Electrochemistry, Volume 43 1937, pp. 752-788 and pp. 827-849 )