Manfred Eigen

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German physical chemist (1927–)

Eigen, the son of a musician, was born at Bochum in Germany and educated at the University of Göttingen where he obtained his PhD in 1951. He joined the staff of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry at Göttingen in 1953 and has served as its director since 1964.

In 1954 Eigen introduced the so-called relaxation techniques for the study of extremely fast chemical reactions (those taking less than a millisecond). Eigen's general method was to take a solution in equilibrium for a given temperature and pressure. If a short disturbance was applied to the solution the equilibrium would be very briefly destroyed and a new equilibrium quickly reached. Eigen studied exactly what happened in this very short time by means of absorption spectroscopy. He applied disturbances to the equilibrium by a variety of methods, such as pulses of electric current, sudden changes in temperature or pressure, or changes in electric field.

The first reaction he investigated was the apparently simple formation of a water molecule from the hydrogen ion, H⁺, and the hydroxide ion, OH^–. Calculations of reaction rates made it clear that they could not be produced by the collision of the simple ions H⁺ and OH^–. Eigen went on to show that the reacting ions are the unexpectedly large H₉O₄⁺ and H₇O₄^–, a proton hydrated with four water molecules and a hydroxyl ion with three water molecules. For this work Eigen shared the 1967 Nobel Prize for chemistry with George Porter and Ronald Norrish.

Eigen later applied his relaxation techniques to complex biochemical reactions. He has also become interested in the origin of nucleic acids and proteins; with his colleague R. Winkler he has proposed a possible mechanism to explain their formation. Much of this and subsequent work was described by Eigen in his Laws of the Game: How Principles of Nature Govern Chance (1982).

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: German chemist who did research on high-speed chemical reactions (born in 1927)
  Synonym: Eigen

Manfred Eigen
Born	May 9, 1927 (1927-05-09) Bochum
Nationality	German
Fields	biophysics
Institutions	Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
Known for	chemical reactions
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1967)

Manfred Eigen (born May 9, 1927 ) is a German biophysicist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions.

Contents 1 Career 2 See also 3 Bibliography 4 References 5 External links

Career

He has been former director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, he is an honorary doctor of the TU Braunschweig. From 1982 to 1993, Eigen was president of the German National Merit Foundation.

In 1967, Eigen was awarded, along with Ronald George Wreyford Norrish and George Porter, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They were distinguished for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions induced in response to very short pulses of energy.

In addition, Eigen's name is linked with the theory of the chemical hypercycle, the cyclic linkage of reaction cycles as an explanation for the self organization of prebiotic systems, which he described with Peter Schuster in 1979. Eigen is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

See also

• Quasispecies model

Bibliography

• Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster The Hypercycle: A principle of natural self-organization, 1979, Springer ISBN 0-387-09293-5
• Manfred Eigen, Ruthild Winkler: The Laws of the Game: How The Principles of Nature Govern Chance, 1993, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-02566-5
• Manfred Eigen, "Molekulare Selbstorganisation und Evolution." (Self organization of matter and the evolution of biological macro molecules.) Naturwissenschaften 58 (10). 1971 pp. 465-523. In English. Influential theoretical paper on origin-of-life biochemistry.

References

• Winkler-Oswatitsch, R (1987), "Manfred Eigen. Scientist and musician.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 109–15, 1987 May 9, doi:10.1016/0301-4622(87)80015-7, PMID 3300805 
• "List of publications by Manfred Eigen.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 103–8, 1987, 1987 May 9, doi:10.1016/0301-4622(87)80014-5, PMID 3300804 
• "Curriculum vitae of Manfred Eigen.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 102, 1987, 1987 May 9, doi:10.1016/0301-4622(87)80013-3, PMID 3300803 
• "Manfred Eigen Festschrift: special issue dedicated to Professor Manfred Eigen on the occasion of his 60th birthday.", Biophys. Chem. 26 (2-3): 101–390, 1987, 1987 May 9, PMID 3300802 
• Weisskopf, V F; Eyring, H; Eyring, E M (1967), "Nobel Prizes: 4 named for international award (Hans Bethe, Manfred Eigen, R.G. Norrish, George Porter).", Science 158 (802): 745–8, 1967 Nov 10, PMID 4860395 
• Schlögl, R W (1997), "To Manfred Eigen on his 70th birthday.", Biophys. Chem. 66 (2-3): 71–3, 1997 Jun 30, doi:10.1016/S0301-4622(97)00075-6, PMID 17029872 

External links

• Biography of Manfred Eigen
• Manfred Eigen's homepage at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
• Manfred Eigen video at the Peoples Archive
• Interview with Manfred Eigen by Harry Kroto, NL Freeview video provided by the Vega Science Trust.
• "Falls ein Gott die Naturgesetze erschuf, so erschuf er auch das Leben durch Evolution" (Ger) Interview with Manfred Eigen from 2004
• debate on theory and proof

v • d • e Nobel Laureates in Chemistry Edwin McMillan / Glenn T. Seaborg (1951) · Archer Martin / Richard Synge (1952) · Hermann Staudinger (1953) · Linus Pauling (1954) · Vincent du Vigneaud (1955) · Cyril Hinshelwood / Nikolay Semyonov (1956) · Alexander Todd (1957) · Frederick Sanger (1958) · Jaroslav Heyrovský (1959) · Willard Libby (1960) · Melvin Calvin (1961) · Max Perutz / John Kendrew (1962) · Karl Ziegler / Giulio Natta (1963) · Dorothy Hodgkin (1964) · Robert Woodward (1965) · Robert S. Mulliken (1966) · Manfred Eigen / Ronald Norrish / George Porter (1967) · Lars Onsager (1968) · Derek Barton / Odd Hassel (1969) · Luis Federico Leloir (1970) · Gerhard Herzberg (1971) · Christian B. Anfinsen / Stanford Moore / William Stein (1972) · E.O.Fischer / Geoffrey Wilkinson (1973) · Paul Flory (1974) · John Cornforth / Vladimir Prelog (1975) Complete roster · 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present

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