Werner, Alfred (Alfred Werner)

(12.XII.1866 - 15.XI.1919)
Alfred Werner (1866-1919), the future creator of the theory of complex compounds, was the fourth and last child in the family Werner, proud residents of Mulhouse in Alsace, France.
Fifty years of Jean-Adam, his father, a fitter, turner and farmer, was characterized by great physical strength, and his mother Salome Zhanneta came from a wealthy Protestant family. She married against the wishes of parents, adopting Catholicism. Jean-Adam had great respect for his wife and consulted with her on all life's questions.
Alfred Werner was married when he was 28 years old, adopted daughter of a pastor Emma Gisker, which was twenty-first year. After marriage, he, as "a person reputation with an annual income of 4000 francs, received Swiss citizenship and moved to Zurich. Here, the couple appeared Werner's son and daughter.
Werner lived in Zurich, the remainder of his life, he became a university professor and president of the Swiss Chemical Society. Since the beginning of scientific activities Werner showed a passionate, almost religious devotion to chemistry. He wrote: "I am often covers ecstasy before the beauty of my science. The more I sink into its secrets, the more it seems to me a huge, grand, too beautiful for mere mortals ". So it is understandable why Werner was so strict with his students.
He could not tolerate gossip and idleness during work and loved the neatness and order. Once, Werner said in a laboratory disorder, he said, without saying a word, a sharp movement of his hands brushed on the floor all the chemical vessels, which, of course, was shattered:
. But Werner's contemporaries remembered not as dry and dull pedant
. He was broad-shouldered man pretty solid build, noisy and busy, jerky movements and gestures. He often laughed heartily - childish. His massive figure, wrapped in smoke cigars unchanged, a person with big piercing eyes immediately priklekali account. Werner was independent in his judgments, and there is a remarkable ability to speak the truth in the face to every other person, regardless of his position in society. Said that he has "a straightforward honesty.
. In 1913 the Swedish King Gustav V presented the Alfred Werner gold medal winner of the Nobel Prize and Diploma, . which stated, . that the prize was awarded in recognition of his work on the nature of bonds in molecules, . which he outlined a new old problems and opened new areas for research, . especially in inorganic chemistry.,