Gerhard Heinrich Friedrich Otto Julius Herzberg, (German: [ˈɡeːɐ̯.haʁt ˈhɛʁt͡sˌbɛʁk] ; December 25, 1904 – March 3, 1999) was a German-Canadian pioneering physicist and physical chemist, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1971, "for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals". Herzberg's main work concerned atomic and molecular spectroscopy. He is well known for using these techniques that determine the structures of diatomic and polyatomic molecules, including free radicals which are difficult to investigate in any other way, and for the chemical analysis of astronomical objects. Herzberg served as Chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada from 1973 to 1980.
Herzberg was born in Hamburg, Germany on December 25, 1904, to Albin H. Herzberg and Ella Biber. He had an older brother, Walter, who was born in January 1904. Herzberg started Vorschule (pre-school) late, after contracting measles. Gerhard and his family were atheists and kept this fact hidden. His father died in 1914, at 43 years of age, after having suffered from dropsy and complications due to an earlier heart condition. Herzberg graduated Vorschule shortly after his father's death. He married Luise Herzberg (née Oettinger), a spectroscopist and fellow researcher in 1929. (Luise Herzberg, died in 1971.)
Nazi persecution and immigration to Canada
In 1933, the Nazi Party introduced a law banning men with Jewish wives from teaching at universities. Herzberg was working as a lecturer at the university in Darmstadt. His wife and fellow researcher, Luise Herzberg, was Jewish so they began making plans to leave Germany near the end of 1933. Leaving Germany was a daunting task as many barriers faced the thousands of Germans trying to flee Nazi persecution. However Herzberg had earlier worked with a visiting physical chemist named John Spinks, from the University of Saskatchewan. Spinks helped Herzberg get a job at the university in Saskatoon. When Herzberg and his wife left Germany in 1935, the Nazis let them take only the equivalent of $2.50 each and personal belongings.
Initially, Herzberg considered a career in astronomy, but his application to the Hamburg Observatory was returned advising him not to pursue a career in the field without private financial support. After completing high school at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums, Herzberg continued his education at Darmstadt University of Technology with the help of a private scholarship. Herzberg completed his Dr.-Ing. degree under Hans Rau in 1928.
1928–30 Post-doctoral work at the University of Göttingen and Bristol University under James Franck, Max Born, John Lennard-Jones
1930 Darmstadt University of Technology: Privatdozent (lecturer) and senior assistant in Physics
1935 Guest professor, University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada)
1936–45 Professor of Physics, University of Saskatchewan
1939 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
1945–8 Professor of spectroscopy, Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago (Chicago, United States)
1948 Director of the Division of Pure Physics, National Research Council of Canada
1951 Fellow of the Royal Society of London
1957–63 Vice President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
1956–7 President of the Canadian Association of Physicists
1960 gives Bakerian Lecturer of the Royal Society of London
1965 Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1966–7 President of the Royal Society of Canada