Gerhard Herzberg

Gerhard Herzberg was born in Hamburg, Germany, on December 25, 1904, and received his early education there.⁠[1][2]

He decided on a career in astronomy but was quickly dissuaded by the scarcity of jobs in the field.⁠[3]

Herzberg enrolled at the Darmstadt Institute of Technology in 1924, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1927 and a doctorate in engineering (Dr.Ing.) in 1928.⁠[3][2]

His doctoral supervisor was H. Rau, a pupil of W. Wien.⁠[2]

From 1928 to 1930 Herzberg did postdoctoral work at the University of Göttingen, with James Franck and Max Born, and at the University of BristolUniversity of BristolThe University of Bristol is a research university in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. It began as University College, Bristol, which opened in 1876, became a university under a royal charter in 1909 and is a member of the Russell Group.Open the full entry.⁠[2][4]

His first contributions to molecular spectroscopy were published at the end of the 1920s.⁠[5]

In 1929 Herzberg married Luise Oettinger; they had two children, Paul and Agnes.⁠[2][6]

In 1930 Herzberg returned to the physics department of the Darmstadt Institute of Technology as Privatdozent (lecturer) and senior assistant, and built a large spectroscopic laboratory there.⁠[2][3]

In August 1935 Herzberg was forced to leave Nazi Germany as a refugee; his wife, Luise, was of Jewish descent. He came to Canada on the initiative of John William Tranter Spinks, who had worked in his Darmstadt laboratory in 1933–1934.⁠[2][7]

He took up a guest professorship at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, funded by the Carnegie Foundation; a few months later he was appointed research professor of physics, a post he held until 1945.⁠[2][3]

Herzberg completed his book Atomic Spectra and Atomic Structure in German in 1936; an English translation appeared the following year.⁠[6]

While in Saskatoon he identified the CH⁺ molecule in interstellar clouds, at a time when only two other molecules had been found in such environments.⁠[3][6]

In 1939 Herzberg was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.⁠[2][7]

From 1945 to 1948 Herzberg was professor of spectroscopy at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, where he was given the opportunity to found an astrophysical laboratory.⁠[2][6]

At Yerkes he studied comets and planetary atmospheres.⁠[3]

In 1948 Herzberg returned to Canada as Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and soon became Director of its Division of Physics.⁠[2][7]

The teams he built at the NRC covered microwave, infrared, visible and ultraviolet spectroscopy, as well as theoretical and solid-state physics.⁠[3]

On March 15, 1951, Herzberg was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, at the age of 46.⁠[8]

After the NRC’s Division of Physics was split in 1955, Herzberg directed the Division of Pure Physics until 1969.⁠[2][4]

Herzberg was president of the Canadian Association of Physicists in 1956–1957, vice president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics in 1957–1963 and president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1966–1967; he also served as president or vice president of several international commissions on spectroscopy.⁠[2]

In 1969, when Herzberg reached retirement age, the NRC created the grade of Distinguished Research Scientist so that he could continue his research; he held it in the recombined Division of Physics.⁠[7][2]

Herzberg was the sole recipient of the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded “for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals.” At the time of the award he was affiliated with the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa.⁠[9][1]

In the presentation speech Stig Claesson of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences described him as generally regarded as the world’s foremost molecular spectroscopist, noting that he had determined the properties of more than thirty free radicals, including methyl and methylene.⁠[5]

On December 11, 1971, Herzberg delivered his Nobel Lecture, “Spectroscopic Studies of Molecular Structure.”⁠[10]

His wife, Luise, died the same year; Herzberg later married Monika Tenthoff.⁠[2][6]

In September 1987 asteroid 3316, discovered in February 1984, was named after Herzberg.⁠[7]

In 1992 Herzberg was made a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame.⁠[7]

Herzberg formally retired from the NRC in December 1994. Over his career he published more than 200 scientific papers.⁠[7]

Herzberg died in Ottawa, Canada, on March 3, 1999, at the age of 94.⁠[1][3]

Herzberg’s main field was atomic and molecular spectroscopy. With his colleagues he determined the structures of many diatomic and polyatomic molecules, including free radicals such as methyl and methylene, and used spectroscopy to identify molecules in planetary atmospheres, comets and interstellar space.⁠[2]

He was the first to detect hydrogen molecules in planetary atmospheres and water in comets, and the first to identify dozens of free radicals in the laboratory and in interstellar clouds.⁠[3]

While searching for the H₃⁺ ion he discovered neutral triatomic hydrogen (H₃); he spent more than eighteen years on methylene (CH₂) before deducing its structure; and he developed high-intensity pulsed spectroscopic techniques to study free radicals.⁠[6]

The presentation speech explained that free radicals are short-lived reaction intermediates lasting millionths of a second and are very difficult to study, and that Herzberg found methylene to be linear in its ground state but bent in higher-energy states.⁠[5]

Herzberg published three early books on atomic and molecular spectroscopy in 1936, 1939 and 1945, and three later books on molecular spectroscopy in 1966, 1971 and 1979, all regarded as classics in the field.⁠[3]

Atomic Spectra and Atomic Structure was revised many times in later editions.⁠[6]

Herzberg’s honours included the Royal Society’s Bakerian Lecture (1960) and Royal Medal (1971), the George Fischer Baker Non-Resident Lectureship at Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is a private research university in Ithaca, New York, and a member of the Ivy League. It is New York State's federal land-grant university, a distinction unique within the Ivy League. Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White founded the university in 1865, and it opened in 1868. In addition to its Ithaca campus, Cornell operates Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell Tech in New York City and a medical college in Qatar. It enrolled 26,793 students in fall 2024. Its president is Michael I. Kotlikoff.Open the full entry (1968), the Faraday Medal and Lectureship of the Chemical Society (1970), and appointment as a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1968.⁠[2][7]

He was a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, an honorary member or fellow of several societies, and held honorary degrees from Canadian and foreign universities, including the University of Stockholm.⁠[2]

The Optical Society (now Optica) elected him a Fellow in 1959, awarded him the Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize in 1964 and made him an honorary member in 1968.⁠[4]

The NRC later reorganized its astronomy and spectroscopy units as the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) established the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, and the Canadian Association of Physicists awards the Herzberg Medal.⁠[7]

The University of Bristol lists Herzberg among its Nobel laureates, recording that he carried out postdoctoral work at the university in 1929–1930.⁠[11]