The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1969

Jeg er blitt overlatt av min med-kjemiker, doctor Barton, å si noen takkens ord i dag i anledning av den storartede mottakelse vi har hatt i Stockholm. Og til og med å tale norsk. Nu er det jo så at de fleste som her er til stede sikkert forstår norsk, men det kan jo hende at det er noen av mine med-laureater som ikke vil forstå hvert eneste ord. Men det jeg gjerne vil ha sagt - det er en hjertelig takk fra oss alle for den vennlige mottakelse og for den storartede fest som vi har opplevet i dag.

Det er jo så at vi kan si at de store ting som skjer i naturvitenskapen i dag, de er mere knyttet til biologien eller til partikkelfysikken enn til den egentlige kjemi. Men vi har i de senere år likevel fått en utvikling i beskrivelsen og forståelsen av finheten i molekylenes bygning og i deres bevegelighet, som har vært av en viss betydning for den praktiske kjemi og for forståelsen av den teoretiske kjemi.

Og jeg har konstatert med glede at det var en viss tilfredshet blant de mange - i ethvert fall i Norge - som arbeider med strukturproblemer i kjemien, over at disse tingene også fikk en viss anerkjennelse gjennom tildelingen av Nobel-prisene. Og det har virket stimulerende på de yngre som arbeider med den utpreglede struktur-kjemi fra den fysikalsk-kjemiske siden at så er tilfelle.

Jet vet at doctor Barton er enig med meg i at vi föler oss meget takknemlige over denne tildeling og over den storartede mottakelse og behandling vi har fått i Stockholm.

Odd Hassel was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, I7 May, 1897. His father was Ernst Hassel, a physician who specialized in gynaecology, his mother Mathilde née Klaveness.

In 1915 he entered the University of his native town where he studied mathematics and physics with chemistry as his chief subject and graduated as a cand. real. in 1920. After a year of leisure in France and Italy he went to Germany in the autumn of 1922 where he first spent more than half a year in Munich in the laboratory of Professor K. Fajans. Work on the sensibilisation of silver halides by organic dyes led to the detection of what is now termed the "adsorption indicators" After moving to Berlin Hassel worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Dahlem, carrying out X-ray crystallographic work. During that time he obtained, on the proposal of Fritz Haber, a Rockefeller Fellowship. In 1924 he graduated as Dr. Phil. at the Berlin University. From 1925 to 1926 he worked at the University of Oslo in the capacity of "universitetsstipendiat", from 1926 to 1934 as "dosent" in physical chemistry and electrochemistry. From 1934 to 1964 he had the chair of physical chemistry in Oslo, the first of its kind in Norway, and headed the department of physical chemistry started in 1934. Ha

ssel's main interest during the first years of his teaching at the University of Oslo dealt with inorganic chemistry, but from 1930 onwards his work was concentrated on problems connected with molecular structure, particularly the structure of cyclohexane and its derivatives and other substances containing six-membered rings related to that of cyclohexane.

In order to supplement the experimental methods available two additional methods not previously used in Norway were introduced; the measurements of electric dipole moments and electron diffraction by vapours. Sufficient experimental material had been gathered by 1943 to allow more general conclusions regarding the possible configurations (conformations) and the transition between them to be drawn. A short paper had just been published in a Norwegian journal when Hassel was arrested by Norwegian Nazis and later taken into custody by the German occupants. Released in November 1944 he found the institute almost deserted. After the war experimental work could be taken up again and in particular electron-diffraction work based on the rotating sector method.

During the early 1950's Hassel opened a new field of structure investigation, namely that of the charge-transfer compounds. Compounds formed by organic electron- donor molecules like ethers and amines and electron acceptors as halogen molecules or organic halides had mainly been investigated by spectroscopic methods. Information on the steric structures was scarce, however, and a series of structure determinations was undertaken. After some years work he was able to set up rules for the geometry of this kind of addition compounds, and this field still remains his main interest in structural chemistry.

Hassel holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Copenhagen and Stockholm. He is an honorary Fellow of the Norwegian Chemical Society and of the Chemical Society, London.

He is a Fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Norwegian Academy of Science. In 1964 he received the Guldberg-Waage Medal from the Norwegian Chemical Society and the Gunnerus Medal from the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences.

He is a Knight of the Order of St. Olav.