Eigen, Manfred (1927-2019), was a German chemist. He shared the 1967 Nobel Prize for chemistry with British scientists Ronald Norrish and George Porter for developing techniques to study rapid chemical reactions. Many of these reactions take place so quickly that scientists had previously considered them instantaneous.
In the early 1950’s, Eigen investigated methods to explore the rate of formation of hydrogen ions (electrically charged atoms) in water. Over the years, Eigen developed a variety of methods known as relaxation techniques. These techniques involve disturbing a substance with a sudden burst of energy, such as a pulse of high-frequency sound waves, and then measuring the time it takes the substance to return to its normal state of equilibrium.
Manfred Eigen was born in Bochum, Germany. He studied physics and chemistry at the University of Gottingen. In 1953, he became a member of the Max Planck Institute of Physical Chemistry, also in Gottingen. He died on Feb. 6, 2019.
