Background
George Charles de Hevesy was born on August 1, 1885 in Budapest, Hungary. He was a son of Louis and Baronesse Eugenie (Schosberger) de Hevesy.
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1932
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1938
George Charles de Hevesy was born on August 1, 1885 in Budapest, Hungary. He was a son of Louis and Baronesse Eugenie (Schosberger) de Hevesy.
He was educated at Budapest and Freiburg universities obtaining his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1908.
Beginning his research at Zurich University as assistant professor (1909-1911), he worked with Fritz Haber at Karlsruhe University and in 1911 was granted a fellowship at Manchester University in the Rutherford Institute, where he worked on isotopes until 1913.
Returning to Budapest in 1913, he served in the army during World War I, and until 1920. worked on the perfection of metallurgical, chemical, and biological application of his methods. In the academic year 1918-1919, he was professor of physical chemistry at Budapest University, but was dismissed from his post by the Horthy regime because he was a Jew.
He emigrated to Denmark where he continued his researches at the Niels Bohr Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, Hevesy moved to Copenhagen and after the occupation in 1943 fled to Stockholm, where he became a professor of organic chemistry. While in Copenhagen, he elaborated the extremely important method of neutron activation analysis, which is still the most sensitive technique for testing high-purity materials and is indispensable in engineering, where increasingly pure substances are required.
His fundamental work. Radioactive Indication or Labeling, was written in Manchester and published in 1913. This paper is regarded as the basis for all methods using radioactive isotopes for labeling, whether applied in biology, metallurgy, medicine, or analytical chemistry. However, its significance was realized only after the production of synthetic radioactive isotopes on an industrial scale. It was for this achievement that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, in 1943. He also worked for a while with F. Paneth, at the Radium Institute in Vienna, where he came to the conclusion that radioactive radium D cannot be isolated chemically from radium G and lead but can be applied to the tracing of lead.
In 1922 he discovered an elusive chemical element of the periodic system. Assuming, on the basis of Bohr’s atomic theory that the as yet unknown 72nd element would not be found among the rare-earth metals but rather in the titanium group near to zirconium, with the assistance of D. Coster and by means of X-ray spectroscopy, he demonstrated its presence in zirconium minerals containing ores. They called the new clement hafnium, after Copenhagen’s Latin name.
In subsequent research, Hevesy applied the labeling technique in medicine, particuarly in tumor examinations. In 1926, he accepted a chair at Freiburg University. There, he invented two important testing methods: the techniques of X- ray fluorescence and of isotope dilution. In 1935, he studied phosphorous metabolism in bones, blood, and malignant growths by application of the phosphorous-32 isotope that he discovered along with the kalium-41 isotope. On the basis of his research, he concluded that the elements of the living organism are in a dynamic state and are gradually exchanged in the course of biochemical processes taking place within them.
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On September 24, 1924 he married Pia Riis. They had four children: Jenny, George Louis, Ingrid, Pia.
