Kazimierz fajans wikipedia

Polish-American physical chemist (–)

Kazimierz Fajans (Kasimir Fajans in many American publications; 27 May – 18 May ) was a Polish-American physical chemist, a pioneer in the science of radioactivity and the co-discoverer of chemical element protactinium.

Education and career

Fajans was born May 27, , in Warsaw, Congress Poland, to a family of Jewish background.^[1] After he had completed secondary school in Warsaw (), he studied chemistry in Germany, first at the University in Leipzig, and then in Heidelberg and Zürich.

In he was awarded his PhD for research into the stereoselective synthesis of chiral compounds.

In Fajans took a job at the laboratory of Ernest Rutherford in Manchester, where the nucleus was discovered. He then returned to Germany, where he became an assistant and subsequently assistant professor at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, researching radioactivity.

In he headed the Faculty of Physical Chemistry at Munich Uni