Misplaced Pages

Herman Francis Mark (born Hermann Franz Mark; May 3, 1895, Vienna – April 6, 1992, Austin, Texas) 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). He was a long-time faculty at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. In 1946, he established the Journal of Polymer Science.

Biography

Early life

Mark was born in Vienna in 1895, the son of Hermann Carl Mark, a physician, and Lili Mueller. Mark's father was Jewish, but converted to Christianity (Lutheran Church) 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 in June 1917.

X-ray diffraction

Mark worked on X-ray diffraction caused by passage through gases along with physicist Raimund Wierl. This led to the computation of intermolecular distances. Linus Pauling 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 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.

IG Farben

In 1926, chemist Kurt Meyer of IG Farben 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 rubbers. Mark helped make Farben a leader in manufacturing and distribution of new polymers and co-polymers.

Mark's son Hans Mark (1929–2021) later became an American government official.

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.

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 (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.

United States

From Canada, Mark went to the United States, where he joined the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. 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 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 Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 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 2003, the American Chemical Society designated the Polymer Research Institute as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.

Decorations and awards

• 1960: William H. Nichols Medal
• 1965: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
• 1966: Foreign member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
• 1966: Elliott Cresson Medal
• 1972: Chemical Pioneer Award
• 1975: Willard Gibbs Award
• 1975: Aachen and Munich Prize for Technology and Applied Sciences
• 1976: Harvey Prize
• 1979: National Medal of Science (United States)
• 1979: Wolf Prize in Chemistry
• 1980: Colwyn medal
• 1980: Perkin Medal
• 1988: Charles Goodyear Medal

Books

• Giant Molecules (Series: LIFE Science Library) (1966)
• Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology 1st. Ed. 1964 4th. Ed. 2007

References

Notes

1. "Herman Francis Mark | American chemist". 30 April 2024.
2. ^ "Herman Mark and the Polymer Research Institute". National Historic Chemical Landmarks. American Chemical Society. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
3. Hargittai, Istvan (2022). "Herman F. Mark – Pioneer of polymer chemistry and initiator of the gas-phase electron diffraction technique of molecular structure determination". Structural Chemistry. 33 (4): 1379–1384. doi:10.1007/s11224-022-01937-9. ISSN 1040-0400. S2CID 248121005.
4. Center for Oral History. "Herman Mark". Science History Institute.
5. Bohning, James J.; Sturchio, Jeffrey L. (20 June 1986). Herman Mark, Transcript of Interviews Conducted by James J. Bohning and Jeffrey L. Sturchio at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York on 3 February, 17 March, and 20 June 1986 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry.
6. "Herman Mark and the Polymer Research Institute". Archived from the original on 2009-05-05. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
7. Perutz, 2002, p. 83
8. "Colwyn Medal award winners". iom3. Retrieved 25 September 2017.
9. "SCI Perkin Medal". Science History Institute. 31 May 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2018.

General references

• Perutz, Max (2002). I Wish I Made You Angry Earlier (paperback ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-859027-X.

External links

• Morawetz, Herbert (1995). Herman Francis Mark, 1895—1992 A Biographical Memoir (PDF). Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.
• Center for Oral History. "Herman Mark". Science History Institute.
• Bohning, James J.; Sturchio, Jeffrey L. (20 June 1986). Herman Mark, Transcript of Interviews Conducted by James J. Bohning and Jeffrey L. Sturchio at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York on 3 February, 17 March, and 20 June 1986 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry.
• Interview (in german) with Hermann Mark in the online archive of the Österreichische Mediathek

v t e Crystallography
Key concepts	Timeline of crystallography Crystallographers Metallurgy Biocrystallography Structure Unit cell Bravais lattice Miller index Point group Reciprocal lattice Restriction theorem Periodic table Structure prediction Systems Cubic Hexagonal Monoclinic Orthorhombic Tetragonal Triclinic Growth Crystallite Equiaxed Twinning Fiveling Aperiodic crystal Quasicrystal Phase transition Phase diagram Eutectic Miscibility gap Polymorphism Liquid crystal Phase transformation crystallography Precipitation Segregation Spinodal decomposition Supersaturation GP-zone Ostwald ripening Defects Grain boundary Disclination CSL Growth Abnormal growth Perfect crystal Stacking fault Dislocation Burgers vector Partial dislocation Kink Cross slip Frank–Read source Cottrell atmosphere Peierls stress GND Lomer–Cottrell junction Slip Slip bands Interstitials Bjerrum defect Frenkel defect Wigner effect Vacancy Schottky defect F-center Stone–Wales defect Defects in diamond Bragg's law Bragg plane Ewald's sphere Friedel's law Hermann–Mauguin notation Structure factor Thermal ellipsoid
Characterisation	Electron Diffraction Scattering Neutron Diffraction Scattering Nuclear magnetic resonance X-ray Diffraction Scattering
Algorithms	Direct methods Isomorphous replacement Molecular replacement Molecular dynamics Patterson map Phase retrieval Gerchberg–Saxton Single particle analysis
Software	CCP4 Coot CrystalExplorer DSR JANA2020 MTEX OctaDist Olex2 SHELX
Databases	Bilbao Crystallographic Server CCDC CIF COD ICSD ICDD PDB
Journals	Crystal Growth & Design Crystallography Reviews Journal of Chemical Crystallography Journal of Crystal Growth Kristallografija Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – Crystalline Materials Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – New Crystal Structures
Awards	Carl Hermann Medal Ewald Prize Gregori Aminoff Prize
Organisation	IUCr IOBCr RAS DMG Associations Europe France Germany UK US Japan
Category Commons

• Scientists from Vienna
• 1895 births
• 1992 deaths
• 20th-century American chemists
• Austrian chemists
• Austrian Lutherans
• Jewish American scientists
• Jewish chemists
• Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States
• Polymer scientists and engineers
• Foreign members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
• Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
• National Medal of Science laureates
• Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art
• Wolf Prize in Chemistry laureates
• Polytechnic Institute of New York University faculty
• 20th-century Lutherans
• 20th-century American Jews
• Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
• Fellows of the American Physical Society
• Presidents of the Society of Rheology