Hevesy, George de, 1885-1966.
Hevesy Scientific Correspondence, 1910-1966


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:
Working in Lord Rutherford's laboratory in Manchester (1913) this Hungarian-born scientist initiated the method of radioactive indicators as a tool in chemical analysis. After the First World War he spent six years at Niels Bohr's Institute in Denmark and, together with the Dutch physicist D. Coster, discovered a hitherto unknown element which was given the Latin name of Copenhagen: "Hafnium". In the 1930s Hevesy returned to Copenhagen and developed the tracer technique in biological and medical research using artificially produced radioactive isotopes. The wide applicability of this technique triggered spectacular advances in the life sciences and many other branches of science and technology. Hevesy was awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1944.

DESCRIPTION OF COLLECTION:
Hevesy's own collection of scientific correspondence supplemented with material from other archives, collected by Hilde Levi. Covers all aspects of his career. Approx. 1000 letters, 120 corrrespondents. Correspondents include: Francis William Aston, Karl Auer Von Welsbach, Jana Böhm, Niels Bohr, Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted, James Chadwick, Dirk Coster, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Kasimir Fajans, James Franck, Hans Wilhelm Geiger, Victor Moritz Goldschmidt, Fritz Haber, Otto Hahn, Otto Hönigsschmidt, Valdemar Thal Jantzen, Frederic Joliot, Ernest Lawrence, Hilde Levi, Lise Meitner, Stefan Meyer, Otto Meyerhof, Joseph Needham, Yoshio Nishina, Joseph K. Parnas, Hans Petterson, Robert Robison, Ernest Rutherford, Rudolf Schoenheimer, Frederick Soddy, Johannes Stark, Harold Clayton Urey, Francis Preston Venable.

11 boxes Part photocopied from other collections; full collection microfilmed.
The photocopies come from Dirk Coster Correspondence, Groningen; Kasimir Fajans Correspondence, SPKB, Berlin; James Franck Correspondence, Chicago; Lise Meitner Correspondence, Cambridge; Stefan Meyer Correspondence, Austria; Meyerhof Correspondence, BSC supplement NBA, Copenhagen; Ernest Rutherford Correspondence, Cambridge; Johannes Stark Correspondence, SPKB, Berlin
Alphabetical after correspondent, then chronological
Each item registered on notecards. List of correspondents and letters. Microfilmed, 16 microfilms
German, Danish, Swedish, English etc


Niels Bohr Archive, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
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