CHEMISTS from Austria

Top 9

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Austrian Chemists of all time. This list of famous Austrian Chemists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Fritz Pregl (1869 - 1930)

With an HPI of 67.84, Fritz Pregl is the most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 61 different languages on wikipedia.

Fritz Pregl (Slovene: Friderik Pregl; 3 September 1869 – 13 December 1930), was a Slovenian-Austrian chemist and physician from a mixed Slovene-German-speaking background. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1923 for making important contributions to quantitative organic microanalysis, one of which was the improvement of the combustion train technique for elemental analysis.

2. Richard Adolf Zsigmondy (1865 - 1929)

With an HPI of 66.54, Richard Adolf Zsigmondy is the 2nd most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Richard Adolf Zsigmondy (Hungarian: Zsigmondy Richárd Adolf; 1 April 1865 – 23 September 1929) was an Austrian-born chemist. He was known for his research in colloids, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1925, as well as for co-inventing the slit-ultramicroscope, and different membrane filters. The crater Zsigmondy on the Moon is named in his honour.

3. Richard Kuhn (1900 - 1967)

With an HPI of 65.79, Richard Kuhn is the 3rd most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 59 different languages.

Richard Johann Kuhn (German pronunciation: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈkuːn] ; 3 December 1900 – 31 July 1967) was an Austrian-German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins".

4. Max Perutz (1914 - 2002)

With an HPI of 61.31, Max Perutz is the 4th most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Max Ferdinand Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002) was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes.

5. Martin Karplus (b. 1930)

With an HPI of 59.31, Martin Karplus is the 5th most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 51 different languages.

Martin Karplus (German: [ˈmaʁˌtin ˈkaʁplus]; born March 15, 1930) is an Austrian and American theoretical chemist. He is the Director of the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory, a joint laboratory between the French National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Strasbourg, France. He is also the Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, emeritus at Harvard University. Karplus received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems".

6. Carl Auer von Welsbach (1858 - 1929)

With an HPI of 58.74, Carl Auer von Welsbach is the 6th most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Carl Auer von Welsbach (1 September 1858 – 4 August 1929), who received the Austrian noble title of Freiherr Auer von Welsbach in 1901, was an Austrian scientist and inventor, who separated didymium into the elements neodymium and praseodymium in 1885. He was also one of three scientists to independently discover the element lutetium (which he named cassiopeium), separating it from ytterbium in 1907, setting off the longest priority dispute in the history of chemistry. He had a talent not only for making scientific advances, but also for turning them into commercially successful products. His work on rare-earth elements led to the development of the ferrocerium "flints" used in modern lighters, the gas mantle that brought light to the streets of Europe in the late 19th century, and the metal-filament light bulb. He took the phrase plus lucis, meaning "more light", as his motto.

7. Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein (1740 - 1825)

With an HPI of 56.56, Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein is the 7th most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Franz-Joseph Müller, Freiherr von Reichenstein or Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein (1 July 1740 or 4 October 1742 – 12 October 1825 or 1826) was an Austrian mineralogist and mining engineer. Müller held several positions in the Habsburg monarchy administration of mines and coinage in the Banat, Transylvania, and Tyrol. During his time in Transylvania he discovered tellurium in 1782. In his later career he became a member of the imperial council in Vienna and was knighted and elevated to the rank Freiherr in 1820.

8. Carl Djerassi (1923 - 2015)

With an HPI of 55.48, Carl Djerassi is the 8th most famous Austrian Chemist.  His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Carl Djerassi (October 29, 1923 – January 30, 2015) was an Austrian-born Bulgarian-American pharmaceutical chemist, novelist, playwright and co-founder of Djerassi Resident Artists Program with Diane Wood Middlebrook. He is best known for his contribution to the development of oral contraceptive pills, nicknamed the "father of the pill".

9. Ida Freund (1863 - 1914)

With an HPI of 45.20, Ida Freund is the 9th most famous Austrian Chemist.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Ida Freund (5 April 1863 – 15 May 1914) was the first woman to be a university chemistry lecturer in the United Kingdom. She is known for her influence on science teaching, particularly the teaching of women and girls. She wrote two key chemistry textbooks and invented the idea of baking periodic table cupcakes, as well as inventing a gas measuring tube, which was named after her.