Hevesy György was born in Budapest, Hungary, to a wealthy and ennobled family of Hungarian-Jewish descent,[7] the fifth of eight children to his parents Lajos Bischitz and Baroness Eugénia (Jenny) Schossberger (ennobled as "De Tornya"). Grandparents from both sides of the family had provided the presidents of the Jewish community of Pest.[7] His parents converted to Roman Catholicism.[8] George grew up in Budapest and graduated high school in 1903 from Piarista Gimnázium. The family's name in 1904 was Hevesy-Bischitz, and Hevesy later changed his own.
In 1922, de Hevesy co-discovered (with Dirk Coster) the element hafnium (72Hf) (LatinHafnia for "Copenhagen", the home town of Niels Bohr). Mendeleev's 1869 periodic table arranged the chemical elements into a logical system, but a chemical element with 72 protons was missing. Hevesy determined to look for that element on the basis of Bohr's atomic model. The mineralogical museum of Norway and Greenland in Copenhagen furnished the material for the research. Characteristic X-ray spectra recordings made of the sample indicated that a new element was present. The accepted account has been disputed by Mansel Davies and Eric Scerri who attribute the prediction that element 72 would be a transition element to the chemist Charles Bury.[citation needed]
Supported financially by the Rockefeller Foundation, Hevesy had a very productive year. He developed the X-ray fluorescence analytical method, and discovered the samarium alpha-ray. It was here he began the use of radioactive isotopes in studying the metabolic processes of plants and animals, by tracing chemicals in the body by replacing part of stable isotopes with small quantities of the radioactive isotopes. In 1923, Hevesy published the first study on the use of the naturally radioactive 212Pb as radioactive tracer to follow the absorption and translocation in the roots, stems and leaves of Vicia faba, also known as the broad bean.[10][11] Later, in 1943, the work on radioactive tracing would earn Hevesy the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[12]
In 1924, Hevesy returned to Freiburg as Professor of Physical Chemistry. In 1930, he went to Cornell University, Ithaca as Baker Lecturer. In 1934, after the Nazis came to power in Germany, he returned to Niels Bohr's Institute at the University of Copenhagen. In 1936, he invented Neutron Activation Analysis. In 1943 he fled to Stockholm (Sweden being neutral during the war), where he an associate of the Institute of Research in Organic Chemistry. In 1949 he was elected Franqui Professor in the University of Ghent. In his retirement, he remained an active scientific associate of the University of Stockholm.
World War II and beyond
Stolpersteine memorials for Georg and his wife Pia de Hevesy in Freiburg
Prior to the onset of World War II, Max von Laue and James Franck had sent their gold Nobel Prize medals to Denmark to keep them from being confiscated by the Nazis. After the Nazi invasion of Denmark this placed them in danger; it was illegal at the time to send gold out of Germany, and were it discovered that Laue and Franck had done so, they could have faced prosecution. To prevent this, de Hevesy concealed the medals by dissolving them in aqua regia and placing the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. After the war, he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The Nobel Society then recast the medals using the recovered gold and returned them to the two laureates.[13][14]
By 1943, Copenhagen was no longer safe for a Jewish scientist and de Hevesy fled to Sweden, where he worked at the University of Stockholm until 1961. In Stockholm, de Hevesy was received at the department of chemistry by the Swedish professor and Nobel Prize winner Hans von Euler-Chelpin, who remained strongly pro-German throughout the war. Despite this, de Hevesy and von Euler-Chelpin collaborated on many scientific papers during and after the war.
While in Stockholm, de Hevesy received the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He was later inducted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and received the Copley Medal, of which he was particularly proud. De Hevesy stated: "The public thinks the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the highest honor that a scientist can receive, but it is not so. Forty or fifty have received Nobel chemistry prizes, but there are only ten foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy, and only two have received a Copley." (Bohr was the other one.) He received the Atoms for Peace Award in 1958 for his peaceful use of radioactive isotopes.
Family life and death
George de Hevesy's grave in Budapest. Cemetery Kerepesi: 27 Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
De Hevesy married Pia Riis in 1924. They had one son and three daughters together, one of whom (Eugenie) married a grandson of the Swedish Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius.[15] De Hevesy died in 1966 at the age of eighty and was buried in Freiburg. In 2000, his body was moved to the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest, Hungary. He had published a total of 397 scientific documents, one of which was the Becquerel-Curie Memorial Lecture, in which he had reminisced about the careers of pioneers of radiochemistry.[16] At his family's request, his ashes were interred at his birthplace in Budapest on 19 April 2001.
^Levi, H. (1976). "George von Hevesy memorial lecture. George Hevesy and his concept of radioactive indicators--in retrospect". European Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 1 (1): 3–10. doi:10.1007/BF00253259. PMID 797570. S2CID 6640231.
^Ostrowski, W. (1968). "George Hevesy inventor of isotope methods in biochemical studies". Postepy Biochemii. 14 (1): 149–153. PMID 4870858.
^Dal Santo, G. (1966). "Professor George C. De Hevesy. In reverent memory". Acta Isotopica. 6 (1): 5–8. PMID 4865432.
^"George De Hevesy". Triangle; the Sandoz Journal of Medical Science. 91: 239–240. 1964. PMID 14184278.
^Weintraub, B. (April 2005), "George de Hevesy: Hafnium and Radioactive Traces; Chemistry", Bull. Isr. Chem. Soc. (18): 41–43
^ abLevi, Hilde (1985), George de Hevesy : life and work : a biography, Bristol: A. Hilger, p. 14, ISBN978-0-85274-555-7
^"George de Hevesy, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1943". geni_family_tree.
^Norrby, Erling (2013), Nobel Prizes and Nature's Surprises
^Myers, W. G. (1979). "Georg Charles de Hevesy: The father of nuclear medicine". Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 20 (6): 590–594. PMID 395289.
^Hevesy, G. (1923). "The Absorption and Translocation of Lead by Plants: A Contribution to the Application of the Method of Radioactive Indicators in the Investigation of the Change of Substance in Plants". The Biochemical Journal. 17 (4–5): 439–445. doi:10.1042/bj0170439. PMC1263906. PMID 16743235.
^"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1943". NobelPrize.org.
^Hevesy, George (1962), Adventures in radioisotope research, vol. 1, New York: Pergamon press, p. 27
^Birgitta Lemmel (2006). "The Nobel Prize Medals and the Medal for the Prize in Economics". The Nobel Foundation.
george, hevesy, hevesy, redirects, here, asteroid, 10444, hevesy, native, form, this, personal, name, hevesy, györgy, károly, this, article, uses, western, name, order, when, mentioning, individuals, george, charles, hevesy, born, györgy, bischitz, hungarian, . de Hevesy redirects here For the asteroid see 10444 de Hevesy The native form of this personal name is Hevesy Gyorgy Karoly This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals George Charles de Hevesy born Gyorgy Bischitz Hungarian Hevesy Gyorgy Karoly German Georg Karl von Hevesy 1 August 1885 5 July 1966 was a Hungarian radiochemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate recognized in 1943 for his key role in the development of radioactive tracers to study chemical processes such as in the metabolism of animals He also co discovered the element hafnium 1 2 3 4 5 6 George de HevesyBornGyorgy Bischitz 1885 08 01 1 August 1885Budapest Kingdom of HungaryDied5 July 1966 1966 07 05 aged 80 Freiburg West GermanyCitizenshipHungaryGermanyAlma materUniversity of FreiburgKnown forHafniumRadioactive tracerSpousePia Riis m 1924 wbr Children4ParentsLajos Bischitz father Eugenia Schossberger mother AwardsNobel Prize for Chemistry 1943 Copley Medal 1949 Faraday Lectureship Prize 1950 Atoms for Peace Award 1958 Fellow of the Royal Society 1 Scientific careerFieldsChemistryInstitutionsGhent UniversityUniversity of BudapestNiels Bohr InstituteETH ZurichUniversity of FreiburgUniversity of ManchesterStefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic PhysicsDoctoral advisorGeorg Franz Julius MeyerOther academic advisorsFritz HaberErnest RutherfordDoctoral studentsRolf HosemannJohann BohmOther notable studentsErika Cremer postdoc Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Early years 1 2 Research 2 World War II and beyond 3 Family life and death 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksBiography EditEarly years Edit Hevesy Gyorgy was born in Budapest Hungary to a wealthy and ennobled family of Hungarian Jewish descent 7 the fifth of eight children to his parents Lajos Bischitz and Baroness Eugenia Jenny Schossberger ennobled as De Tornya Grandparents from both sides of the family had provided the presidents of the Jewish community of Pest 7 His parents converted to Roman Catholicism 8 George grew up in Budapest and graduated high school in 1903 from Piarista Gimnazium The family s name in 1904 was Hevesy Bischitz and Hevesy later changed his own De Hevesy began his studies in chemistry at the University of Budapest for one year and at the Technical University of Berlin for several months but transferred to the University of Freiburg There he met Ludwig Gattermann In 1906 he started his Ph D thesis with Georg Franz Julius Meyer 9 acquiring his doctorate in physics in 1908 In 1908 Hevesy was offered a position at the ETH Zurich Switzerland yet being independently wealthy he was able to choose his research environment He worked first with Fritz Haber in Karlsruhe Germany then with Ernest Rutherford in Manchester England where he also met Niels Bohr Back at home in Budapest he was appointed professor in physical chemistry in 1918 In 1920 he settled in Copenhagen Research Edit In 1922 de Hevesy co discovered with Dirk Coster the element hafnium 72Hf Latin Hafnia for Copenhagen the home town of Niels Bohr Mendeleev s 1869 periodic table arranged the chemical elements into a logical system but a chemical element with 72 protons was missing Hevesy determined to look for that element on the basis of Bohr s atomic model The mineralogical museum of Norway and Greenland in Copenhagen furnished the material for the research Characteristic X ray spectra recordings made of the sample indicated that a new element was present The accepted account has been disputed by Mansel Davies and Eric Scerri who attribute the prediction that element 72 would be a transition element to the chemist Charles Bury citation needed Supported financially by the Rockefeller Foundation Hevesy had a very productive year He developed the X ray fluorescence analytical method and discovered the samarium alpha ray It was here he began the use of radioactive isotopes in studying the metabolic processes of plants and animals by tracing chemicals in the body by replacing part of stable isotopes with small quantities of the radioactive isotopes In 1923 Hevesy published the first study on the use of the naturally radioactive 212Pb as radioactive tracer to follow the absorption and translocation in the roots stems and leaves of Vicia faba also known as the broad bean 10 11 Later in 1943 the work on radioactive tracing would earn Hevesy the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 12 In 1924 Hevesy returned to Freiburg as Professor of Physical Chemistry In 1930 he went to Cornell University Ithaca as Baker Lecturer In 1934 after the Nazis came to power in Germany he returned to Niels Bohr s Institute at the University of Copenhagen In 1936 he invented Neutron Activation Analysis In 1943 he fled to Stockholm Sweden being neutral during the war where he an associate of the Institute of Research in Organic Chemistry In 1949 he was elected Franqui Professor in the University of Ghent In his retirement he remained an active scientific associate of the University of Stockholm World War II and beyond Edit Stolpersteine memorials for Georg and his wife Pia de Hevesy in Freiburg Prior to the onset of World War II Max von Laue and James Franck had sent their gold Nobel Prize medals to Denmark to keep them from being confiscated by the Nazis After the Nazi invasion of Denmark this placed them in danger it was illegal at the time to send gold out of Germany and were it discovered that Laue and Franck had done so they could have faced prosecution To prevent this de Hevesy concealed the medals by dissolving them in aqua regia and placing the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen After the war he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid The Nobel Society then recast the medals using the recovered gold and returned them to the two laureates 13 14 By 1943 Copenhagen was no longer safe for a Jewish scientist and de Hevesy fled to Sweden where he worked at the University of Stockholm until 1961 In Stockholm de Hevesy was received at the department of chemistry by the Swedish professor and Nobel Prize winner Hans von Euler Chelpin who remained strongly pro German throughout the war Despite this de Hevesy and von Euler Chelpin collaborated on many scientific papers during and after the war While in Stockholm de Hevesy received the Nobel Prize in chemistry He was later inducted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and received the Copley Medal of which he was particularly proud De Hevesy stated The public thinks the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the highest honor that a scientist can receive but it is not so Forty or fifty have received Nobel chemistry prizes but there are only ten foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy and only two have received a Copley Bohr was the other one He received the Atoms for Peace Award in 1958 for his peaceful use of radioactive isotopes Family life and death Edit George de Hevesy s grave in Budapest Cemetery Kerepesi 27 Hungarian Academy of Sciences De Hevesy married Pia Riis in 1924 They had one son and three daughters together one of whom Eugenie married a grandson of the Swedish Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius 15 De Hevesy died in 1966 at the age of eighty and was buried in Freiburg In 2000 his body was moved to the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest Hungary He had published a total of 397 scientific documents one of which was the Becquerel Curie Memorial Lecture in which he had reminisced about the careers of pioneers of radiochemistry 16 At his family s request his ashes were interred at his birthplace in Budapest on 19 April 2001 On 10 May 2005 the Hevesy Laboratory 17 was founded at Riso National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy now Technical University of Denmark DTU Nutech It was named after George de Hevesy as the father of the isotope tracer principle under the initiative of the lab s first director Prof Mikael Jensen See also EditAugust Krogh List of Jewish Nobel laureates Johanna Bischitz de Heves 10444 de Hevesy Hevesy crater The Martians scientists References Edit a b Cockcroft J D 1967 George de Hevesy 1885 1966 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 13 125 126 doi 10 1098 rsbm 1967 0007 Levi H 1976 George von Hevesy memorial lecture George Hevesy and his concept of radioactive indicators in retrospect European Journal of Nuclear Medicine 1 1 3 10 doi 10 1007 BF00253259 PMID 797570 S2CID 6640231 Ostrowski W 1968 George Hevesy inventor of isotope methods in biochemical studies Postepy Biochemii 14 1 149 153 PMID 4870858 Dal Santo G 1966 Professor George C De Hevesy In reverent memory Acta Isotopica 6 1 5 8 PMID 4865432 George De Hevesy Triangle the Sandoz Journal of Medical Science 91 239 240 1964 PMID 14184278 Weintraub B April 2005 George de Hevesy Hafnium and Radioactive Traces Chemistry Bull Isr Chem Soc 18 41 43 a b Levi Hilde 1985 George de Hevesy life and work a biography Bristol A Hilger p 14 ISBN 978 0 85274 555 7 George de Hevesy Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1943 geni family tree Norrby Erling 2013 Nobel Prizes and Nature s Surprises Myers W G 1979 Georg Charles de Hevesy The father of nuclear medicine Journal of Nuclear Medicine 20 6 590 594 PMID 395289 Hevesy G 1923 The Absorption and Translocation of Lead by Plants A Contribution to the Application of the Method of Radioactive Indicators in the Investigation of the Change of Substance in Plants The Biochemical Journal 17 4 5 439 445 doi 10 1042 bj0170439 PMC 1263906 PMID 16743235 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1943 NobelPrize org Hevesy George 1962 Adventures in radioisotope research vol 1 New York Pergamon press p 27 Birgitta Lemmel 2006 The Nobel Prize Medals and the Medal for the Prize in Economics The Nobel Foundation Scripps Log obituaries http scilib ucsd edu sio biogr ScrippsLogObits pdf Archived 21 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine De Hevesy George C 1961 Marie Curie and her contemporaries PDF Journal of Nuclear Medicine 2 169 82 PMID 13714019 Hevesy LaboratoryExternal links Edit Media related to George de Hevesy at Wikimedia Commons George de Hevesy on Nobelprize org including the Nobel Lecture on 12 December 1944 Some Applications of Isotopic Indicators Annotated bibliography for George de Hevesy from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues Works by or about George de Hevesy at Internet Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title George de Hevesy amp oldid 1129657228, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
