Hermann Staudinger

Hermann Staudinger was a German organic chemist who lived from 1881 to 1965. He demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers, and received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. He is also known for discovering ketenes and the Staudinger reaction, and for elucidating, together with Leopold Ruzicka, the molecular structures of pyrethrin I and II in the 1920s, work that enabled the later development of pyrethroid insecticides.