Gunnar Hägg

Gunnar Hägg
Gunnar Hägg photographed by Rune Nordlund
Born	(1903-12-14)December 14, 1903 Stockholm, Sweden
Died	May 28, 1986(1986-05-28) (aged 82) Uppsala, Sweden
Education	Stockholm University University of London
Known for	Hägg diagram
Scientific career
Institutions	Stockholm University University of Jena Uppsala University
Thesis	X-ray studies on the binary systems of iron with nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth (1929)
Doctoral advisor	Arne Westgren
Other academic advisors	Frederick G. Donnan
Doctoral students	Arne Magnéli

Gunnar Hägg (December 14, 1903 in Stockholm – May 28, 1986 in Uppsala)[1] was a Swedish chemist and crystallographer.[2]

Education and career

Hägg studied chemistry at Stockholm University from 1922, was a Ramsay Fellow at the University of London in 1926, studying under Frederick G. Donnan.[3] He obtained his PhD in Stockholm in 1929 under Arne Westgren for the work X-ray studies on the binary systems of iron with nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth. After that he became a lecturer at the Stockholm University and in 1930 at the University of Jena, Germany. In 1937 he became professor of inorganic and general chemistry at Uppsala University. He retired in 1969.

Hägg's research dealt with nitrides, borides, carbides and hydrides of transition metals and determined their crystal structure with X-ray diffraction. He also developed X-ray cameras and calculating machines for this purpose. His investigations into phases and phase transformations in steel had practical applications. In Sweden he is known for his university chemistry textbooks.[2]

Honors and awards

He was a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala (1940), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1942), the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund (1943) and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, from which he received the Great Gold Medal in 1969. In 1960 he also became a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. A room in Uppsala University's Ångstrom Laboratory is named after him. In 1968 he received the Oscar Carlson Medal and in 1997 the Gunnar Starck Medal from the Swedish Chemical Society.[4] From 1965 to 1976 he was a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry (and chairman in 1976).[5]

Bibliography

• Hägg, Gunnar (1960). Die Theoretischen Grundlagen der Analytischen Chemie (Zweite, Unveränderte Auflage ed.). Basel. ISBN 978-3-0348-4154-2. OCLC 913687110.
• Hägg, Gunnar (1969). [Allmän och oorganisk kemi.] General and inorganic chemistry; translated by Howard T. Evans, Jr. Howard T. EVANS. New York, Chichester: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-33872-9. OCLC 559519780.
• Bijvoet, J. M.; Burgers, W. G.; Hägg, G., eds. (1972). Early Papers on Diffraction of X-rays by Crystals. Volume 2. Boston, MA: Springer US. ISBN 978-1-4615-6878-0. OCLC 840286179.
• Hägg, Gunnar (1977). Kemisk reaktionslära : processer och jämvikter i kemisk analys. A & W). Stockholm: AWE/Geber. ISBN 91-20-04475-5. OCLC 185948179.

References

1. "Gunnar Hägg". geni_family_tree. 14 December 1903. Retrieved 2022-06-13.
2. Magnéli, A. (1987-02-01). "Gunnar Hägg, 1903-1986". Journal of Applied Crystallography. 20 (1): 1–2. Bibcode:1987JApCr..20....1M. doi:10.1107/S0021889887087247. ISSN 0021-8898.
3. Oesper, Ralph E. (1951). "Gunnar Hägg". Journal of Chemical Education. 28 (9): 484. Bibcode:1951JChEd..28..484O. doi:10.1021/ed028p484. ISSN 0021-9584.
4. "Lista mottagare". Svenska Kemisamfundet. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
5. Seeman, Jeffrey I.; Restrepo, Guillermo (2020-02-17). "The Mutation of the "Nobel Prize in Chemistry" into the "Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences": Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 59 (8): 2942–2961. doi:10.1002/anie.201906266. ISSN 1433-7851. PMID 31800972. S2CID 208642963.