Herbert Aaron Hauptman

Herbert Aaron Hauptman, born in 1917, American mathematician, crystallographer, and Nobel Prize winner. With his colleague, American biophysicist and crystallographer Jerome Karle, Hauptman developed a mathematical formula to determine the structure of molecules. Their so-called direct method reduced from several years to about two days the time needed to work out an atomic structure. Hauptman and Karle were awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a mathematical formula to determine crystal structure.

Born in New York City, Hauptman met future research partner Karle at City College of New York. After earning his M.S. degree in mathematics from Columbia University in 1939, Hauptman joined Karle at the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in 1947. Hauptman earned his Ph.D. degree in mathematics in 1955 from the University of Maryland, where he served as a part-time professor until 1970. He then became a research director of the Medical Foundation of Buffalo and became the foundation's president in 1988. Since 1970 he has been a research professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Before Hauptman and Karle's direct method, it had been impossible to determine the precise three-dimensional structure of particular molecules. Crystallographers directed X-ray beams at the crystal of substances they wished to analyze. Some of the beams passed through the crystal, but many were deflected by the electrons in the material. The deflected beams appeared on photographic film as patterns of dots. This method measured the intensity of the X rays, but not the phases (how much each ray is displaced while traveling through the crystal). Without these phases, scientists could not get a complete picture of the crystal's molecular structure.

Hauptman and Karle devised a mathematical formula that would calculate the angles at which the X-ray beams were deflected. They were then able to translate the resulting dot pattern into a three-dimensional map of the atoms within the molecule. Although Hauptman and Karle published their findings in the 1950s, other chemists were skeptical of their work because few understood its complicated mathematical formula. The direct method received little support until the mid-1960s, when Karle's wife, Isabella, a physical chemist, demonstrated its accuracy and efficiency in analyzing large molecules. Within a few years, Hauptman and Karle's technique was being used to determine the atomic structures of thousands of new compounds, including hormones, vitamins, and antibiotics.