Rudolf Criegee

Key takeaways

Rudolf Criegee belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
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Reproduce the core statement of Rudolf Criegee from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rudolf Criegee (23 May 1902 — 7 November 1975) was a German organic chemist.

Early life

Criegee was born on 23 May 1902 in Düsseldorf to a wealthy family. His father worked as a court director. The family was national liberal, Prussian and Protestant, managing what Rudolf Criegee felt was a great fortune. His happy childhood was ended by the World War I. In March 1915, his eldest brother died on the Western Front, while a second brother was seriously injured in the summer of 1916. Criegee himself was drafted. After the post-war period, he matriculated at the University of Tübingen in chemistry in 1920. After four semesters of study and moderate success, his experience in student fraternity Germania and twelve duels, Criegee changed to the University of Greifswald. He remained there for three semesters and passed his first examination. He moved to the University of Würzburg and received his PhD in December 1925 at Otto Dimroth with a thesis on acridinium salts. His father died in 1926 and his mother suffered from a serious illness, before she died in 1932. Criegee remained in Würzburg and in 1930 he received his habilitation with a thesis on the "Oxydation ungesättigter Kohlenwasserstoffe mit Blei(IV)-Salzen“. In 1928, Rudolf Criegee married his former fellow student Marianne Henze.

Career In 1932, he moved to the University of Marburg, where he worked as a senior assistant to Hans Meerwein. In November 1933, he was one of the signatories to the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State. In 1937 he received an associate professorship at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, but his work was interrupted by World War II. He was drafted again. In the summer of 1942, he was seriously wounded on the Eastern Front. His wife died on 10 February. Criegee was released to conduct research, but his institute was destroyed by bombs in the summer of 1944. In December he remarried. After the war, he declined calls from other universities and was appointed a full professor in 1947. From 1949 he led the Institute of Organic Chemistry. His leadership led to a new building for the institute in 1966. He retired in 1969, although he continued research until his death on 7 November 1975. In his scientific work he was primarily involved with oxidation processes of organic compounds, where he used Lead(IV) acetate and Osmium tetroxide as oxidizing agents . A focus was the investigation on the autoxidation of unsaturated cyclic hydrocarbons to peroxides. One of his great achievements was the elucidation of the reaction mechanism for ozonolysis to form Ozonides The Criegee intermediate (or Criegee biradical) and the Criegee rearrangement are named after him. In this context, his research on cyclic reactions and cyclic rearrangement mechanisms led him, independently of the Nobel Prize–winning work of R.B.Woodward and R.Hoffmann (Woodward–Hoffmann rules), to the same conclusions as theirs, but he failed to publish his findings in time. In his last years, he investigated the chemistry of small carbon rings, especially Cyclobutadiene and its Derivatives.

Awards/Honorary degrees Emil Fischer Medal from the Society of German Chemists in 1960 University of Giessen in 1967 LMU Munich in 1972

Memberships Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1962 Heidelberg Academy for Sciences and Humanities in 1955 German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 1968 Honorable member of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1966

Writings Die Einwirkung von Acridiniumsalzen auf kupplungsfähige Substanzen, Dissertation, Univ. Würzburg 1925 Oxydation ungesättigter Kohlenwasserstoffe mit Blei(4)salzen, Liebigs Ann. Chem. 481,263 (1930) doi:10.1002/jlac.19304810117 Die Umlagerung der Dekalin-peroxydester als Folge von kationischem Sauerstoff, Liebigs Ann. Chem. 560,127 (1948) doi:10.1002/jlac.19485600106 R. C. und G. Schröder: Ein kristallisiertes Primärozonid, Chem. Ber. 93,689 (1960) doi:10.1002/cber.19600930323 Mechanismus der Ozonolyse, Angew. Chem. 87,765 (1975) doi:10.1002/ange.19750872104; Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 14,745 (1975) doi:10.1002/anie.197507451

Sources Rolf Huisgen: Das Porträt: Rudolf Criegee (1902-1975), Chemie in unserer Zeit, 12. Jahrg. 1978, S. 49–55, ISSN 0009-2851 Maier, G.: Rudolf Criegee. 1902–1975. (1977) Chem. Ber., 110: XXVII–XLVI. doi:10.1002/cber.19771100345

References

External links Literature by and about Rudolf Criegee in the German National Library catalogue Rudolf Criegee, ein kurzgefasstes Portrait (Universität Karlsruhe) Rudolf Criegee at the RÖMPP

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rudolf Criegee

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rudolf Criegee 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 Rudolf Criegee 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 Rudolf Criegee 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 Rudolf Criegee

In research: Rudolf Criegee 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 Rudolf Criegee 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: Rudolf Criegee is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1902 births, 1975 deaths, 20th-century Freikorps personnel, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rudolf Criegee 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.

How to study Rudolf Criegee in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rudolf Criegee 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.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Rudolf Criegee in simple terms?

Rudolf Criegee (23 May 1902 — 7 November 1975) was a German organic chemist. Early life Criegee was born on 23 May 1902 in Düsseldorf to a wealthy family.

Why does Rudolf Criegee 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 Rudolf Criegee?

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 Rudolf Criegee.