From Chemical Craftsmanship to the Art of Gilding Atoms
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Schmidbaur, H. (2024). From Chemical Craftsmanship to the Art of Gilding Atoms. GNT Publishing GmbH. https://doi.org/10.47261/1559
Schmidbaur, Hubert. From Chemical Craftsmanship to the Art of Gilding Atoms. GNT Publishing GmbH, 2024. Book. https://doi.org/10.47261/1559
Schmidbaur, H (2024): From Chemical Craftsmanship to the Art of Gilding Atoms, GNT Publishing GmbH, [online] https://doi.org/10.47261/1559
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From Chemical Craftsmanship to the Art of Gilding Atoms
Lives in Chemistry – Lebenswerke in der Chemie, Vol. 10
(2024)
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Abstract
A momentous decision was made by HUBERT SCHMIDBAUR, born in 1934 in Landsberg, Bavaria, when he applied for a top-notch scholarship in 1953 choosing “Chemistry”—and thus starting his 70-year journey in science.He began his studies in the post-war ruins of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University chemistry buildings, and embarked also on industry internships abroad to finally choose the sulfur labs of Max Schmidt for his PhD in 1960. He then left sulfur and Munich and went off to take care of silicon and many other elements, first in Marburg and Würzburg and finally in Munich’s Technical University in 1973.He loved the chances offered by the periodic table as an unlimited playground, collaborating with chemists all over the world. His charismatic lectures and his innovative approach to new research areas captivated students and fellow scientists alike. His career culminated in his gold era that stimulated so many till the very day.Info & Downloads: l-i-c.org/1134
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lives in Chemistry | 3 | ||
| Published titles in this series | 4 | ||
| Imprint | 6 | ||
| Table of Contents | 8 | ||
| Preface | 11 | ||
| 1 Childhood (1934–1939) and Elementary School (1939–1945) in the Third Reich | 15 | ||
| School in war times | 19 | ||
| Educational topics | 22 | ||
| Joining the Jungvolk | 24 | ||
| War-time shortages | 25 | ||
| Prepared for Hitlerjugend | 30 | ||
| The war drawing closer | 32 | ||
| 2 High School Years in post-war Germany (1945–1953) | 33 | ||
| Landsberg’s Oberschule | 35 | ||
| Teachers in our coeducational classes | 35 | ||
| Mathematics | 36 | ||
| English | 37 | ||
| Interlude: The GYA center | 38 | ||
| Sports | 39 | ||
| Latin and Greek | 40 | ||
| Biology | 40 | ||
| Religion | 41 | ||
| Arts | 42 | ||
| Chemistry | 42 | ||
| The Student Fraternity LSt | 44 | ||
| An excursion to chemical industry | 45 | ||
| Preparing for university | 46 | ||
| Summer holidays | 47 | ||
| 3 LMU: Studies up to the Doctorate (1953–1960) and two post-doctoral Years (1960–1962) | 49 | ||
| Starting in ruins and construction sites | 51 | ||
| Lectures and laboratory courses | 53 | ||
| New chemistry buildings | 56 | ||
| Summer internships | 57 | ||
| Turning to Inorganic Chemistry for the diploma and doctorate theses | 58 | ||
| From a Carneval tour to the chemistry of rhenium | 62 | ||
| The IUPAC Congress of 1959 and a first contribution to an international conference | 62 | ||
| First collaborations with industrial laboratories | 64 | ||
| The doctorate and the post-doctoral years | 64 | ||
| 4 University of Marburg (1962–1965) | 69 | ||
| Starting in Marburg | 72 | ||
| Marburg’s Chemistry Department in the 1960s | 74 | ||
| Building a small research group | 76 | ||
| First foreign visitors | 77 | ||
| Contributing to international conferences | 79 | ||
| Habilitation | 80 | ||
| Teaching in Marburg | 82 | ||
| Moving into the Student Revolution | 83 | ||
| Leaving Marburg | 84 | ||
| 5 University of Würzburg (1965–1973) | 85 | ||
| Getting started in Würzburg | 88 | ||
| Extraordinarius | 89 | ||
| New homes for the family in Dettelbach and Würzburg | 91 | ||
| The partnerships with the University of Padova and the State University of New York at Albany | 92 | ||
| Developing diverse interests in research | 95 | ||
| An offer for a chair of Inorganic Chemistry at TU Berlin | 98 | ||
| Robert West on sabbatical in Würzburg | 98 | ||
| A visitor from the Soviet Union: Alexander A. Zhdanov | 99 | ||
| An excursion into NQR spectroscopy | 100 | ||
| Entering gold chemistry | 101 | ||
| The scientific community in phosphorus chemistry in Germany in the 1970s | 102 | ||
| Early recognition by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie | 103 | ||
| Phosphorus and silicon chemistry links with the chemical industry | 103 | ||
| A sabbatical at the University of Edinburgh | 105 | ||
| A NATO grant for the cooperation with the University of Hawaii | 107 | ||
| Memorable international conferences | 108 | ||
| The offer to move to TUM | 109 | ||
| 6 Technical University of Munich (TUM): the First Decade (1973–1983) | 111 | ||
| The Nobel Prize for Ernst Otto Fischer | 113 | ||
| Getting started at TUM | 113 | ||
| Winning the Frederic Stanley Kipping Award | 115 | ||
| Chemistry at TUM in the 1970s | 117 | ||
| Moves into preparative gold chemistry with full thrust | 118 | ||
| New analytical techniques: 197Au Mössbauer, ESCA, and NQR spectroscopy | 120 | ||
| Some fundamental contributions to phosphorus, arsenic, and sulfur ylide chemistry | 121 | ||
| Presentations at Phosphorus Conferences | 124 | ||
| A round of post-doctorate guests | 125 | ||
| A first and second invitation by the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) | 127 | ||
| The new TUM chemistry buildings in Garching | 130 | ||
| An offer from the University of Münster | 131 | ||
| An invitation to the A. D. Little Lectureship at MIT | 132 | ||
| Focusing work on carbodiphosphoranes | 133 | ||
| Excursions to phosphine borane chemistry | 136 | ||
| Backing gold chemistry research by literature scrutiny | 137 | ||
| Tours to India | 138 | ||
| Unsuccessful attempts to contribute to the pharmacology of gold | 140 | ||
| Winning the Alfred Stock Medal of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) | 141 | ||
| Losing the voice in Colorado | 142 | ||
| Centenary Prize and Lectureship of the Royal Society of Chemistry | 143 | ||
| Activities on the Board of Referees of the German Research Foundation (DFG) | 144 | ||
| Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany | 146 | ||
| Arene π-complexes of main group metals | 146 | ||
| Private aspects of the first decade at TUM | 149 | ||
| 7 Technical University of Munich (TUM): A Second Decade (1983–1993) | 151 | ||
| The 1986 Pacific West Coast Inorganic Lectureship in the US and Canada | 153 | ||
| Bioinorganic Chemistry of Magnesium | 155 | ||
| With Bioinorganic Chemistry of Magnesium in India | 157 | ||
| Retirement of Ernst O. Fischer and a new start with Wolfgang A. Herrmann | 158 | ||
| Celebrating gold chemistry in Johannesburg, South Africa | 159 | ||
| Further progress in the chemistry of phosphorus ligands | 160 | ||
| Invitation to two lectureships in Australia | 162 | ||
| Receiving the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation | 164 | ||
| A comeback to Silicon Chemistry | 165 | ||
| A visit to the US for the John C. Bailar Lecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana | 167 | ||
| Advancing in gold chemistry | 168 | ||
| Turning to collaborations with research groups leading in quantum chemistry of heavy elements | 170 | ||
| Building first connections with New Zealand | 171 | ||
| Clustering gold atoms at a carbon center: “The Art of Gilding Atoms” | 172 | ||
| The Frontiers in Chemical Research Lectureship at Texas A & M University | 175 | ||
| A brief interlude with mercury | 176 | ||
| First academy memberships | 177 | ||
| Complementary work in germanium, tin and lead chemistry - and the adventures that came with it | 179 | ||
| Entering beryllium chemistry by writing the Gmelin volume on Organoberyllium Chemistry | 182 | ||
| Bio-relevant beryllium chemistry | 183 | ||
| Beryllium Chemistry on the Island of Teneriffa | 185 | ||
| More gilded atoms | 186 | ||
| Publishing gold chemistry in Nature | 190 | ||
| Membership in the Kuratorium of Fonds der Chemischen Industrie | 192 | ||
| Applied gallium chemistry | 193 | ||
| Gold mining in Papua New Guinea | 193 | ||
| Gold claims in Northern Siberia and a tour to Franz Joseph Land | 195 | ||
| Further preparative and structural studies in silicon chemistry | 198 | ||
| Some memorable conferences of the Silicon Community | 199 | ||
| Tours with the research group | 202 | ||
| 8 Technical University of Munich (TUM): the Last Decade in Office (1993–2003) | 203 | ||
| Great results from a “French Connection” | 205 | ||
| The 3M Lectureship at the University of Western Ontario | 207 | ||
| The Ludwig Mond Prize and Lectureship by the Royal Society of Chemistry | 207 | ||
| Visiting professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand | 208 | ||
| Photophysical effects in gold chemistry | 210 | ||
| A brief excursion into dendrimer chemistry with gold | 211 | ||
| Evaluation committee of the Czech Academy of Science | 213 | ||
| Changes in the TUM Inorganic Chemistry Institute | 214 | ||
| Obtaining the Wacker Silicone Award 1996 | 214 | ||
| The Egon Wiberg Lecture at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich | 215 | ||
| Organization of an international conference: Progress in the Science and Technology of Gold | 215 | ||
| Invitation to the Coover Lecture at Iowa State University | 216 | ||
| Moves into homogeneous catalysis and complementary topics in gold chemistry | 217 | ||
| An invitation to the Glenn T. Seaborg Lecture at UC Berkeley | 220 | ||
| Ties with Taiwan universities | 220 | ||
| Organization of the XVIII International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry (ICOMC) at TUM in 199 | 221 | ||
| Duties at the university evaluation committees of the states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westpha | 224 | ||
| Visitors from Spain | 226 | ||
| Receiving the Bonn Chemistry Prize | 227 | ||
| Invitation to the Birch Lecture at the Australian National University (ANU) | 227 | ||
| Visits to the University of Tasmania in Hobart and to the University of Adelaide | 228 | ||
| For the Gordon Stone Lecture to the University of Bristol | 229 | ||
| Supramolecular chemistry of gold(I) complexes | 230 | ||
| To Chile for two memorable conferences | 231 | ||
| The Pacifichem Congress in Honolulu | 233 | ||
| New contributions to gallium and indium chemistry | 233 | ||
| A South African - German workshop on gold chemistry supported by the VW Foundation | 235 | ||
| Membership in the German Academy of the Technical Sciences (Acatech) | 235 | ||
| A last team for phosphorus chemistry | 236 | ||
| The death of a true Doktorvater | 237 | ||
| Our last experimental contributions to Bioinorganic Chemistry | 238 | ||
| The Watt Centennial Lectureship at the University of Texas at Austin and the meeting of the Chemical | 238 | ||
| Facing a family disaster | 238 | ||
| Adapting to the status of an emeritus | 239 | ||
| An account of the research work carried out at four universities over 45 years (1958 - 2003) | 240 | ||
| 9 Busy Years as an Emeritus (2003–2022) | 243 | ||
| Associate Professor at the University of Stellenbosch 2003 - 2006 | 245 | ||
| Visits to Namibia - for history and minerals | 246 | ||
| ... and to Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique | 248 | ||
| Dr. rer. nat. h. c. of Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster | 249 | ||
| Ernst Otto Fischer † and Heinz-Peter Fritz † | 249 | ||
| Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore | 250 | ||
| Herbert Schumann † | 251 | ||
| Renewal of the LMU doctorate after 50 years - to celebrate my 75th birthday | 252 | ||
| Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and the Arts | 253 | ||
| Significant recent advances in gold chemistry presented in review articles | 254 | ||
| Adjunct Professor at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | 254 | ||
| Blaise Pascal Award of the European Academy of Sciences | 255 | ||
| Activities as a consultant | 255 | ||
| Two emeritus decades briefly evaluated | 256 | ||
| Appendix | 257 | ||
| Acknowledgements | 259 | ||
| Special Hommage | 260 | ||
| Vita | 263 | ||
| Chemistree | 264 | ||
| Publications | 267 | ||
| Links and literature | 271 | ||
| Image sources | 274 | ||
| Index | 276 | ||
| Reactions / The Series | 283 |