Manfred Eigen Biography

Manfred Eigen was born on May 9, 1927, to Ernst Eigen and Hedwig, nee Feld at Bochum, Germany. His father was a chamber musician.

Eigen was enrolled to be a part of the German army at the age of 15, where he was made to serve an anti-aircraft unit. He was captured by the Russians at the end of Second World War. He escaped captivity and joined the University of Gottingen in 1945, where he studied physics and chemistry along with a batch of other post-war students.

He obtained his doctorate in Natural Sciences in 1951, under the guidance of Arnold Euken. His doctoral work was based on the specific heat of heavy water and aqueous electrolyte solutions.

From 1951 to 1953, Manfred Eigen worked as an Assistant Lecturer at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at the University of Gottingen. At this time, he began his work on fast ionic reactions which were detected by ultrasonic absorption measurements. In his research work, he collaborated with other colleagues, Konrad Tamm and Walter Kurtze. In 1953, the trio published their work on the absorption of sound by various salt solutions. With this they proposed, how sound absorption helped in detecting the speed of the fast reactions.

In the following years, Eigen developed several techniques to record time below nanosecond. Leo de Maeyer joined his laboratory in 1954, and helped Eigen in developing several techniques for his research. His research interest was in the area of reactions involving protons, and he was instrumental in finding out the speed of neutralization. Together, they also figured out the anomalous conduction properties of protons in ice crystals. Eigen and De Maeyer stayed in close collaboration in research at the Max Planck Institute, Gottingen.

During 1960s, his major work was in the area of physical chemistry of organic compounds. His profound interest in the study of reactions enabled him to determine the intermediate stages in a series of chemical reactions and experimentally prove it for an acid base catalysis reaction.

He was appointed the director of the Max Planck Institute in 1964, and served as the Institute’s Managing Director from 1967 to 1970.

He was also an elected member of the Council of Scientists of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Manfred Eigen also served as the Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute.

He used to travel with his friend and colleague Leo De Maeyer, to Boston, to conduct discussions of topics of common interests with American neurologists, biochemists and biophysicists.

Manfred Eigen received the Otto Hahn Prize in 1962.

Eigen received the most prestigious Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1967, for his work on ‘Kinetics of extremely fast running chemical reactions with relaxation methods’.

He developed more than hundred research papers on thermodynamic properties of water and aqueous solutions, theory of electrolytes, thermal conductivity and sound absorption of fast chemical reactions.

Manfred Eigen was married to Elfriede Müller. They had two children, Gerald and Angela.

He later married his longtime scientific partner, Ruthild Winkler-Oswatitsch.

He was an amateur musician and loved to play guitar during his free time.

He also loved mountaineering, which was his favorite sport activity.

Manfred Eigen died on February 6, 2019. He was 91.