Doctoral dissertations before

Fig. 6.1-1. Subjects of American doctoral dissertations before 1900. (See Table 6.1,...

Historically, the development of the acrylates proceeded slowly they first received serious attention from Otto Rohm. AcryUc acid (propenoic acid) was first prepared by the air oxidation of acrolein in 1843 (1,2). Methyl and ethyl acrylate were prepared in 1873, but were not observed to polymerize at that time (3). In 1880 poly(methyl acrylate) was reported by G. W. A. Kahlbaum, who noted that on dry distillation up to 320°C the polymer did not depolymerize (4). Rohm observed the remarkable properties of acryUc polymers while preparing for his doctoral dissertation in 1901 however, a quarter of a century elapsed before he was able to translate his observations into commercial reaUty. He obtained a U.S. patent on the sulfur vulcanization of acrylates in 1912 (5). Based on the continuing work in Rohm s laboratory, the first limited production of acrylates began in 1927 by the Rohm and Haas Company in Darmstadt, Germany (6). Use of this class of compounds has grown from that time to a total U.S. consumption in 1989 of approximately 400,000 metric tons. Total worldwide consumption is probably twice that. 

In conjunction with its research activities, TPRC screens the world s literature and collects published information on a wide range of materials in the field of thermophysics. This information concerns data, theoretical estimation methods, and experimental measurement techniques. Technical papers come from journals, abstracting services, reports, doctoral dissertations, masters theses, and many other sources. The full evaluation and analysis of the collected raw data are needed before publications on recommended values can be prepared. Such effort is obviously time consuming and expensive and therefore this critical evaluation is currently performed at a rather modest funding level. The end result is that much of the available world literature is not being processed and distilled. 

For a successful academic career with a strong research component, a post-doctoral fellowship is neariy essential. Start the search at least six months before you defend your doctoral dissertation. If you are not tied to a given location by family concerns, consider going to a new part of the worid. Fi5t and foremost, find a post-doctoral advisor who is both well-respected and altruistic. For potential advisors who are senior faculty, the quality of jobs found by their past post-doctoral fellows is the best single indicator of your probability of success."... 

Financial conditions in 1933 kept Brown University from reappointing Onsager, and so on being offered a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship by Yale University, he accepted. On arrival at Yale, it was realized that he did not have a doctorate his doctoral dissertation filed years before in Trondheim had not been in proper form in some way and no PhD was awarded. Yale chose to solve the problem of Onsager s appointment by awarding him a Yale PhD in chemistry on the basis of a dissertation he submitted, a dissertation... 

Fig. 6.1-3. Subjects of doctoral dissertations at Johns Hopkins University before 1900.

Three days before Christmas in 1900, a crowd composed mostly of women crammed into the ornate ceremonial auditorium of Breslau s university, the Aula Leopoldina, to watch Clara Immerwahr defend her dissertation. Seldom has the awarding of a doctorate been attended by so many, noted a report in the Breslau evening newspaper under the headline Our First Feminine Doctor. ... 

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