MSU Gallery of Chemists' Photo-Portraits and Mini-Biographies

* Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer

1835-1917

 

Portrait: 6
Location - Floor: First - Zone: Room 136 - Wall: North - Sequence: 2
Source: Kedzie Collection
Sponsor:


 
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer
 

A great German organic chemist of his time, he received the 1905 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his researches on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds. Most famous were his researches on the constitution and synthesis of the plant pigment indigo (1883), the discovery of barbituric acid (1863) phenolphthalein and fluorescein (1871), and the "strain theory" of triple bonds and small carbon rings. Three of his students (E. Fischer, E. Büchner, R. Willstätter) received Nobel prizes.