chemistry

Karl Wieghardt

Karl Wieghardt is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Karl Wieghardt rather than just read about it. In short: Karl Wieghardt (born 25 July 1942, in Göttingen) is a German inorganic chemist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim. He was active in the preparation and detailed characterization of models for iron and manganese metalloenzymes, metal complexes of noninnocent ligands, and magnetic interactions in polynuclear metal complexes.

Key takeaways

Karl Wieghardt belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Karl Wieghardt to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Karl Wieghardt from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Karl Wieghardt (born 25 July 1942, in Göttingen) is a German inorganic chemist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim. He was active in the preparation and detailed characterization of models for iron and manganese metalloenzymes, metal complexes of noninnocent ligands, and magnetic interactions in polynuclear metal complexes.

Early life and education Wieghardt was born in 1942 in Göttingen, Germany, the son of the physicist Karl Wieghardt and grandson of the mathematician also named Karl Wieghardt. From 1947-1952, Wieghardt lived in England as his father was working at the Admiralty Research Laboratory of the British Navy in Teddington. While in the UK, he attended elementary school in Elstead, Surrey. Following the nuclear espionage affair surrounding Klaus Fuchs, Wieghardt's father was dismissed from the Admiralty Research Laboratory, and he moved his family back to Germany. At the age of 12, Wieghardt obtained a chemistry kit as a Christmas present from his parents, then proceeded to set his basement on fire. His parents then forbade him from doing or studying chemistry for the next eight years. In 1962, Wieghardt graduated from the Johanneum secondary school in Hamburg. Wieghardt then attended Heidelberg University, where he studied chemistry. Wieghardt obtained his PhD in 1969 at Heidelberg University with Prof. Hans Siebert. His dissertation involved the x-ray structure analysis of multinuclear complexes of cobalt(III). He then conducted postdoctoral studies with Prof. A. Geoffrey Sykes, at the University of Leeds, where he studied the kinetics and reaction mechanisms of electron transfer processes in binuclear cobalt complexes.

Independent career

Wieghardt returned to Germany, and completed his habilitation at the University of Heidelberg in 1975 with a thesis on the structural chemistry and mechanistic investigations on polynuclear cobalt-amine complexes. At the end of 1975, he was hired as an associate professor at the Technical University of Hannover. His work there focused on the synthesis, reactions and reaction mechanisms of vanadium and molybdenum complexes with hydroxylamine and hydroxylamine derivatives as ligands. In 1981 he moved to the Ruhr University Bochum as professor. It was at this stage of his career that he expanded the size of his research group, and moved into the field of bioinorganic chemistry, synthesizing transition metal complexes that act as analogs for metalloprotein active sites. Wieghardt went on to popularize the utility of 1,4,7-triazacyclononane and its derivatives as ligands for biomimetic transition metal complexes. In 1994, he was appointed Director of the Max Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry. While at the Max Planck Institute, he developed a research program to study complexes of noninnocent ligands. Since 2010, he has been professor emeritus.

Research highlights Coordination compounds with coordinated tyrosyl radicals as galactose oxidase mimics Double-exchange in a molecular diiron complex High-valent iron(V) and iron(VI) complexes

Awards Gay-Lussac-Humboldt Prize (1995) Wilhelm Klemm Award from the German Chemical Society (2000) John C. Bailar Medal (2000) Centenary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2001) Ruhr Prize for Arts and Sciences (2005) ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry (2006) Elected member of the German National Academy of Natural Sciences Leopoldina (2006)

References

External links Homepage von Wieghardt am Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Energiekonversion

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Karl Wieghardt

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Karl Wieghardt claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Karl Wieghardt before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Karl Wieghardt ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Karl Wieghardt

In research: Karl Wieghardt appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Karl Wieghardt in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Karl Wieghardt is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1942 births, 20th-century German chemists, 21st-century German chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Karl Wieghardt outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Karl Wieghardt” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Karl Wieghardt in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Karl Wieghardt means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Karl Wieghardt out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Karl Wieghardt in simple terms?

Why does Karl Wieghardt matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Karl Wieghardt?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Karl Wieghardt.