Moderation: Eva E.Wille
Almost two years ago, the 150th anniversary of a woman's doctorate based on a chemical thesis was celebrated. This doctor was Lydia Sesemann (1845-1925), who was awarded the title of Dr phil. at the University of Zurich. At the time, the University of Zurich was a magnet for women who wanted to study and who had been denied an academic education elsewhere. These included, for example, Rachel Lloyd from the USA, the German Olga Wohlbrück, Geertruida W. P. van Maarseveen from the Netherlands and the British Edith E. Humphrey. They studied and researched at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (now the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) or at the University of Zurich. In all cases, their doctorates were awarded by the university. The lecture presents the lives and work of these women and explores the question of why so many foreign female students came to Switzerland, but why there were hardly any Swiss female students.
Zoom link to the lecture: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88544918573?pwd=c9vmDO62e4NaekjqoNlFTqJQMnfnkQ.1
Before the talk, there will be a five-minute start-up presentation. Dr Jonas Schubert from DERMAPURGE (www.dermapurge.com ) will show you innovative solutions for skin cleansing of hazardous substances for occupational safety.
Moderation: Wolfgang Gerhartz
Have you ever held Runge's book Der Bildungstrieb der Stoffe in your hand? You'll be impressed by the pictures, some of which you can even imagine are images of nature. But basically they are nothing more than the product of a chemical reaction in which different solutions were dripped onto blotting paper. Runge had thus developed a precursor to chromatography. In this context, however, he was also interested in the question of whether there was a force of nature behind these images, analogous to the vital force (vis vitalis). In the lecture, it will be possible to enjoy some recordings from the original edition available in Rostock, but also to learn about Runge's life, his important discoveries (caffeine, quinine, aniline, carbolic acid, pyrrole) and to listen to passages from his "Hauswirthschaftliche Briefe".
Moderation: Hans-Uwe von Grabowski
In the lectures on organic chemistry, first- and second-order nucleophilic substitution reactions are discussed. If the second-order substitution takes place on a carbon atom that is a stereogenic centre, the configuration is reversed, which is often described as the folding of an umbrella. This phenomenon has entered the literature as Walden reversal because it was first described by the scholar Paul Walden. However, his main field of work was physical chemistry, and he is sometimes even celebrated as the father of ionic liquids. However, the name Walden, who concealed his origins from a Latvian farming family and presented himself as a Baltic German, is also found in the history of chemistry. In addition to an appreciation of his achievements in chemistry and a critical examination of his historical contributions, the biography of this chemist is presented, who experienced Tsarist Russia, briefly independent Latvia, Germany in the Weimar Republic and under National Socialism and finally the Federal Republic of Germany.
Moderation: Uwe von Grabowski
The lecture will pay special tribute to the life and work of the lesser-known chemist Meyer. The presentation will focus on the individual stages on Meyer's path to the realisation of periodicity. His drafts of (partly unpublished) classification systems from 1864, 1868 and 1869 to 1872 will be discussed.