MARK,HERMAN - LIFE AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

This short outline of Herman Mark's career covers his youth in Vienna, his activity in the army during World War I, his years at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem where he was mostly concerned with X-ray crystallography, his career as the director of a research labora tory of high molecular compounds of the IG Farben in Ludwigshafen, his years at the University of Vienna where he designed the first academi c curriculum of polymer chemistry and his final years at the Polytechn ic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University) where he created the first American doctoral program in polymer science. His activity was crucial to the recognition of polymer chemistry as an important sc ientific discipline and to its international organization. He was equa lly at home in the academic environment, and as an industrial and gove rnment consultant. His crucial scientific contributions included the f irst crystal structure of a macromolecule, the first derivation of the mechanical property of a fiber from molecular parameters and the stat istical theory of rubber elasticity.