Hermann Staudinger and the Future of Polymer Research Jubilees—Beloved Occasions for Cultural Piety
Helmut Ringsdorf · Angewandte Chemie International Edition · 2004
Chemistry was his life, but Hermann Staudinger's dreams belonged to biology and to the unity of chemistry and biology. That is the central theme of this Essay, which, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize to Hermann Staudinger, discusses the significance of Staudinger's discoveries for the biosciences, not only retrospectively, but deliberately also prospectively. General questions of science ethics and the interplay of research, politics, and responsibility are also considered.