Herman Francis Mark
Encyclopedia
Herman Francis Mark was an Austrian-American
chemist
regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science
. Mark's x-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers provided important evidence for the macromolecular
theory of polymer structure. Together with Houwink he formulated an equation, now called the Mark-Houwink or Mark-Houwink-Sakurada equation
, describing the dependence of the intrinsic viscosity
of a polymer on its relative molecular mass (molecular weight).
Several early stimuli apparently steered Herman Mark to science. He was greatly influenced by a teacher, Franz Hlawaty, who made mathematics and physics understandable. At the age of twelve, he and his friend toured the laboratories of the University of Vienna. His friend's father, who taught science, arranged the tour. The visit excited both boys and before long they turned their bedrooms into laboratories. Both had access to chemicals through their fathers, and they were soon performing experiments.
He was highly decorated and the Austrian hero of the alpine Battle of Mount Ortigara
in June 1917.
learned X-ray diffraction from Mark, and that knowledge led to Pauling’s seminal work on the structure of proteins.
Albert Einstein
asked Mark and his colleagues worked to use the intense and powerful X-ray tubes available at their laboratory to verify the Compton Effect; this work provided the strongest confirmation yet of Einstein’s light quantum theory for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics
.
offered Mark the assistant directorship of research at one of the company’s laboratories. In his years at Farben, Mark worked on the first serious attempts at the commercialization of polystyrene
, polyvinyl chloride
, polyvinyl alcohol
, and the first synthetic rubber
s. Mark helped make Farben a leader in manufacturing and distribution of new polymers and co-polymers.
With the rise of Nazi power, Mark's plant manager recognised that as a foreigner and the son of a Jewish father he would be most vulnerable. Mark took his manager's advice and accepted a position as professor of physical chemistry at the University of Vienna, which brought him back to the city where he grew up. Mark’s stay in Vienna lasted six very successful years during which he designed a new curriculum in polymer chemistry and continued research in the field of macromolecules.
In September 1937, Mark met C.B. Thorne, an official with the Canadian International Pulp and Paper Company, in Dresden
. At the meeting, Thorne offered Mark a position as research manager with the company in Hawkesbury, Ontario
, Canada, with the goal of modernizing its production of wood pulp for the purpose of making rayon, cellulose acetate, and cellophane. Mark replied that he was busy but that he would try to visit Canada the following year to help reorganize the company’s research facilities.
When Hitler’s troops invaded Austria and declared the Anschluss
(the political union of Germany and Austria), Mark was arrested and thrown into a Gestapo prison. He was released with a warning not to contact anyone Jewish. He was also stripped of his passport. He retrieved his passport by paying a bribe equal to a year’s salary, and he obtained a visa to enter Canada and transit visas through Switzerland, France, and England. At the end of April, Mark and his family mounted a Nazi flag on the radiator of their car, strapped ski equipment on the roof, and drove across the border, reaching Zurich the next day. From there, the family traveled to England via France, and in September, Mark, temporarily leaving his family behind, boarded a boat to Montreal.
Some of Mark's earliest work at the Brooklyn Polytechnic involved experiments with reinforcing ice
by mixing water with wood pulp
or cotton wool before freezing. In 1942, the results of these experiments were later passed to Max Perutz
who had been a student of Mark in Vienna, but was now in the UK. Max Perutz
's work would lead to the development of Pykrete
.
In 1946, Mark established the Polymer Research Institute at Brooklyn Polytechnic, the first research facility in the United States
dedicated to polymer research. Mark is also recognized as a pioneer in establishing curriculum and pedagogy for the field of polymer science. In 1950, the POLY division of the American Chemical Society
was formed, and has since grown to the second-largest division in this association with nearly 8,000 members.
In 1966, he was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal
.
In 1976, he was awarded the Harvey Prize
.
In 1980, Mark was awarded the Perkin Medal
.
He is survived by his granddaughter Catherine Burdge, and his great-grandchildren Lucy and Peter Burdge.
In 2003, the American Chemical Society
designated the Polymer Research Institute as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.
Austrian-American
Austrian Americans are Americans of Austrian descent. According to the 2000 US census, there are 735,128, or 0.3% Americans of full or partial Austrian descent. The states with the largest Austrian American populations are New York , California , Pennsylvania , Florida and New Jersey...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science
Polymer science
Polymer science or macromolecular science is the subfield of materials science concerned with polymers, primarily synthetic polymers such as plastics...
. Mark's x-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers provided important evidence for the macromolecular
Macromolecule
A macromolecule is a very large molecule commonly created by some form of polymerization. In biochemistry, the term is applied to the four conventional biopolymers , as well as non-polymeric molecules with large molecular mass such as macrocycles...
theory of polymer structure. Together with Houwink he formulated an equation, now called the Mark-Houwink or Mark-Houwink-Sakurada equation
Mark-Houwink equation
The Mark–Houwink equation gives a relation between intrinsic viscosity [\eta] and molecular weight M:[\eta]=KM^aFrom this equation the molecular weight of a polymer can be determined from data on the intrinsic viscosity and vice versa....
, describing the dependence of the intrinsic viscosity
Viscosity
Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear or tensile stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness" or "internal friction". Thus, water is "thin", having a lower viscosity, while honey is "thick", having a higher viscosity...
of a polymer on its relative molecular mass (molecular weight).
Early life
Mark was born in Vienna in 1895, the son of Herman Carl Mark, a physician, and Lili Mueller. Mark’s father was a Jew who converted to Lutheranism upon marriage.Several early stimuli apparently steered Herman Mark to science. He was greatly influenced by a teacher, Franz Hlawaty, who made mathematics and physics understandable. At the age of twelve, he and his friend toured the laboratories of the University of Vienna. His friend's father, who taught science, arranged the tour. The visit excited both boys and before long they turned their bedrooms into laboratories. Both had access to chemicals through their fathers, and they were soon performing experiments.
World War I
Mark served as an Officer in the elite k.k. Kaiserschützen Regiment Nr. II of the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I.He was highly decorated and the Austrian hero of the alpine Battle of Mount Ortigara
Battle of Mount Ortigara
The Battle of Mount Ortigara was fought from 10 to 25 June 1917 between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies for possession of Mount Ortigara, in the Asiago Plateau.- Background :...
in June 1917.
X-ray diffraction
Mark worked on X-ray diffraction. Linus PaulingLinus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...
learned X-ray diffraction from Mark, and that knowledge led to Pauling’s seminal work on the structure of proteins.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
asked Mark and his colleagues worked to use the intense and powerful X-ray tubes available at their laboratory to verify the Compton Effect; this work provided the strongest confirmation yet of Einstein’s light quantum theory for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
.
IG Farben
In 1926 Kurt Meyer of IG FarbenIG Farben
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
offered Mark the assistant directorship of research at one of the company’s laboratories. In his years at Farben, Mark worked on the first serious attempts at the commercialization of polystyrene
Polystyrene
Polystyrene ) also known as Thermocole, abbreviated following ISO Standard PS, is an aromatic polymer made from the monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is manufactured from petroleum by the chemical industry...
, polyvinyl chloride
Polyvinyl chloride
Polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated PVC, is a thermoplastic polymer. It is a vinyl polymer constructed of repeating vinyl groups having one hydrogen replaced by chloride. Polyvinyl chloride is the third most widely produced plastic, after polyethylene and polypropylene. PVC is widely used in...
, polyvinyl alcohol
Polyvinyl alcohol
Polyvinyl alcohol is a water-soluble synthetic polymer .-Properties:...
, and the first synthetic rubber
Synthetic rubber
Synthetic rubber is is any type of artificial elastomer, invariably a polymer. An elastomer is a material with the mechanical property that it can undergo much more elastic deformation under stress than most materials and still return to its previous size without permanent deformation...
s. Mark helped make Farben a leader in manufacturing and distribution of new polymers and co-polymers.
With the rise of Nazi power, Mark's plant manager recognised that as a foreigner and the son of a Jewish father he would be most vulnerable. Mark took his manager's advice and accepted a position as professor of physical chemistry at the University of Vienna, which brought him back to the city where he grew up. Mark’s stay in Vienna lasted six very successful years during which he designed a new curriculum in polymer chemistry and continued research in the field of macromolecules.
In September 1937, Mark met C.B. Thorne, an official with the Canadian International Pulp and Paper Company, in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. At the meeting, Thorne offered Mark a position as research manager with the company in Hawkesbury, Ontario
Hawkesbury, Ontario
Hawkesbury is a town in the Eastern portion of Southern Ontario, Canada, on the Ottawa River, near the Quebec-Ontario border.It lies on the south shore of the Ottawa River about halfway between Downtown Ottawa and Downtown Montreal in Prescott and Russell Counties. The Long-Sault Bridge links it...
, Canada, with the goal of modernizing its production of wood pulp for the purpose of making rayon, cellulose acetate, and cellophane. Mark replied that he was busy but that he would try to visit Canada the following year to help reorganize the company’s research facilities.
Escape from Nazi Europe
In early 1938 Mark began preparing to leave Austria by delegating his administrative duties to colleagues. At the same time he clandestinely started to buy platinum wire, worth roughly $50,000, which he bent into coat hangers while his wife knitted covers so that the hangers could be taken out of the country.When Hitler’s troops invaded Austria and declared the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
(the political union of Germany and Austria), Mark was arrested and thrown into a Gestapo prison. He was released with a warning not to contact anyone Jewish. He was also stripped of his passport. He retrieved his passport by paying a bribe equal to a year’s salary, and he obtained a visa to enter Canada and transit visas through Switzerland, France, and England. At the end of April, Mark and his family mounted a Nazi flag on the radiator of their car, strapped ski equipment on the roof, and drove across the border, reaching Zurich the next day. From there, the family traveled to England via France, and in September, Mark, temporarily leaving his family behind, boarded a boat to Montreal.
USA
From Canada, Mark went to the United States, where he joined the Brooklyn Polytechnic. There he established a strong polymer program which included not only research but the first undergraduate polymer education in the United States.Some of Mark's earliest work at the Brooklyn Polytechnic involved experiments with reinforcing ice
Ice
Ice is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
by mixing water with wood pulp
Wood pulp
Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper. Wood pulp is the most common raw material in papermaking.-History:...
or cotton wool before freezing. In 1942, the results of these experiments were later passed to Max Perutz
Max Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
who had been a student of Mark in Vienna, but was now in the UK. Max Perutz
Max Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
's work would lead to the development of Pykrete
Pykrete
Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14 percent sawdust or some other form of wood pulp and 86 percent ice by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the British Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier...
.
In 1946, Mark established the Polymer Research Institute at Brooklyn Polytechnic, the first research facility in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
dedicated to polymer research. Mark is also recognized as a pioneer in establishing curriculum and pedagogy for the field of polymer science. In 1950, the POLY division of the American Chemical Society
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
was formed, and has since grown to the second-largest division in this association with nearly 8,000 members.
In 1966, he was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal
Elliott Cresson Medal
The Elliott Cresson Medal, also known as the Elliott Cresson Gold Medal, was the highest award given by the Franklin Institute. The award was established by Elliott Cresson, life member of the Franklin Institute, with $1,000 granted in 1848...
.
In 1976, he was awarded the Harvey Prize
Harvey Prize
The Harvey Prize is awarded by the Technion in Haifa, Israel. It is awarded in different disciplines of Science, Technology, Human Health, and Contributions to Peace in the Middle East. Two awards - each of $75,000 - are given away annually...
.
In 1980, Mark was awarded the Perkin Medal
Perkin Medal
The Perkin Medal is an award given annually by the American section of the Society of Chemical Industry to a scientist residing in America for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development." It is considered the highest honor given in the US industrial chemical...
.
He is survived by his granddaughter Catherine Burdge, and his great-grandchildren Lucy and Peter Burdge.
In 2003, the American Chemical Society
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
designated the Polymer Research Institute as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.
Books
- Giant Molecules (Series: LIFE Science LibraryLife Science LibraryThe Life Science Library was a popular series of hardbound books published by Time-Life between 1963 and 1967. Each of the 26 volumes explored a major topic of the natural sciences. They were intended for, and written at a level appropriate to, an educated lay readership...
) (1966) - Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology 1st. Ed. 1964 4th. Ed. 2007