Gerhard Herzberg

Gerhard Herzberg (1904-1999), German-born Canadian physicist and Nobel laureate. One of the few physicists to receive a Nobel Prize in chemistry, Herzberg was recognized with this award in 1971 for his contributions to understanding the structure of atoms and the geometry of molecules, which are now basic principles of modern chemistry.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, Herzberg had an early interest in astronomy but instead studied physics, receiving his doctorate in 1928 from the Technische Universität in Darmstadt. He was particularly interested in spectroscopy, the study of the wavelengths of radiation of different elements. His lectures on this subject, given while he was a postdoctoral student at the University of Göttingen, were later published and remained in print for many decades.

Herzberg returned to Darmstadt in 1930 to continue his research, but pressure from the Nazi Party hampered his work and forced him to leave Germany. He spent ten years (1935-1945) at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, where he began applying his spectroscopic studies to problems in astronomy. In his laboratory, Herzberg successfully analyzed the spectrum of the ion CH+ and matched it with a previously unidentified spectrum from interstellar space. At Yerkes Observatory near Chicago, Illinois, he continued spectroscopic studies of various molecules, particularly hydrogen, which would later be identified in the atmospheres of both planets and stars and also in interstellar space. Lack of research funding sent Herzberg back to Canada, where for the next 20 years he directed the physics division of the National Research Council (NRC). His laboratory was recognized by the Nobel Committee as the world's leading center for molecular spectroscopy research.

In recognition of his achievements, the NRC established in 1974 the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. There he continued his spectroscopic studies, particularly on planetary atmospheres and the composition of comets, until his retirement in 1994. In the 1980s his research into triatonic hydrogen won him a prestigious American Physical Society medal.