Hevesy, George Charles von (1885-1966)

The son of a wealthy industrialist, Hevesy was educated at the University of Freiburg, where he obtained his PhD in 1908. Thereafter, in a career much interrupted by war and politics, Hevesy worked in seven different countries.

After brief periods in Zurich and Karlsruhe, Hevesy joined Rutherford in Manchester.

In 1923 Hevesy made the first application of a radioactive tracer – Pb 212 – to a biological system. The Pb-212 was used to label a lead salt that plants took up in solution.

From 1934,onwards he pioneered the use of radioactive tracers to study chemical processes, particularly in living organism.

Hevesy left Manchester in 1913 for the University of Vienna but, with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he returned to his native Budapest.

After war he worked in Copenhagen from 1920 to 1926, where he accepted the chair in physical chemistry at the University of Freiburg. Hevesy however, abandoned Germany with the rise of Hitler and return in 1934 to Denmark.

In 1935 he return to Freiburg and in World War II he fled to Sweden where he became professor at Stockholm.

Hevesy is also known for his discovery, in 1923, the new element hafnium in collaboration with Dirk Coster(1889 – 1950).

He was awarded the Noble Prize in chemistry in 1943. In 1959 he received the Atoms for Peace Award.

Hevesy, George Charles von (1885-1966)