Peter J. T. Morris

PETER J. T. MORRIS Science Museum Exhibition Road South Kensington London SW72DD, UK 

We saw in acetylene a new chemical basis useful in many types of chemical synthesis, and in a number of our laboratories we specifically directed research into the fields of acetylene. 

Adolf Hitler, memorandum on the Four Year Plan, 1936  

Walter Reppe (1892-1969), according to a 1946 British intelligence report, contributed more to the advancement of chemical science than probably any other LG. Farben employee. The son of a Thuringian schoolteacher, he was a very dedicated chemist. 

When BASF was revived after the war, Reppe became the company s research director until his retirement in 1957. 

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Peter J. T. Morris. The American Synthetic Rubber Research Program. Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989. Source for synthetic rubber needed German substitutes neoprene properties and marketing. 

This essay is a revision of my paper read at the 1999 Munich CHMC conference, Between Physics and Biology Chemical Sciences in the Twentieth Century. I have benefited from the insightful comments of Peter J.T. Morris and Teiji Tsuruta. Thanks also to Elizabeth Sandager for her kind assistance. 

Peter J. T. Morris, Head of Research for the National Museum of Science Industry, London and Editor of Ambix, has written on many aspects of modem chemistry. He has published books on the history of synthetic mbber and polymers, modem chemical instrumentation and the work of Robert Bums Woodward. He has also published popular articles about the history of chemistry in... 

This chapter is based largely on Peter J. T. Morris, Education of Chemists in the Eighteenth Century, Chemistry Part II thesis, Oxford, 1978, supplemented by G. L. E. Turner, The Physical Sciences , p. 659, in Ehistory of the University of Oxford, v. 5, The Eighteenth Century , ed L. S. Sutherland and L. G. Mitchell, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, p. 659, and C. Webster, The Medical Faculty and the Physic Garden , ibid., p. 683. 

For carbide and cyanamide see Peter J.T. Morris, The Development of Acetylene Chemistry and Synthetic Rubber by I.G. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft, 1926-1945, Oxford University D.Phil. thesis, 1982. For a review of nitrogen fixation see Haber, op. cit. (1), pp. 84-97, and Alfred von Nagel, Stickstoff (Ludwigshafen BASF A.G., 1970). 

Ernst Homburg, Lothar Meinzer, Peter J.T. Morris, Carsten Reinhardt and Harm G. Schrdter are thanked for providing information that has been invaluable to this contribution, and also for critical comments. 

Morris, Acetylene Chemistry and Synthetic Rubber, Chapter Six, summarized in Peter J. T. Morris, Synthetic rubber Autarky and war in Susan T. I. Mossman and Peter J. T. Morris, eds. The Development of Plastics (Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry, 1994), pp. 57-59. 

Peter J. T. Morris, The technology-science interaction Walter Reppe and cyclooctatetraene chemistry, British Journal for the History of Science, 25 (1992), 145-167. 

A brief but highly readable account of polymer history is Peter J.T. Morris, Polymer Pioneers (Philadelphia Center for the History of Chemistry, 1986). 

For other developments in Britain see Maurice R. Fox, Dye-makers of Great Britain, 1856-1976 A History of Chemists, Companies, Products and Changes (Manchester ICI, 1987). For an international overview see Peter J.T. Morris and Anthony S. Travis, A history of the international dyestuff industry, American Dyestuff Reporter, 81, no. 11 (November 1992), 59-100, 192-195. 

Elisabeth Gamsey, University of Cambridge, Ernst Homburg, University of Maastricht, and Peter J.T. Morris, Science Museum, London, are thanked for assistance with information used in this paper, and also for critical comments. 

Peter J.T. Morris is Senior Curator, Experimental Chemistry, Science Museum, London. His publications include the American Synthetic Rubber Research Program (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), and, with Colin A. Russell, Archives of the British Chemical Industry, 1750-1914 (Faringdon, Oxfordshire British Society for the History of Science, 1988). Research appointments have included Royal Society-British Academy Research Fellow in the History of Science and Edelstein International Fellow in the History of Chemistry. 

Travis, Anthony S. Modernizing Industrial Organic Chemistry Great Britain between Two World Wars, in Anthony S. Travis, Harm G. Schroter, Ernst Homburg and Peter J.T. Morris (eds.). Determinants in the Evolution of the European Chemical Industry, 1900-1939 New Technologies, Political Frameworks, Markets and Companies (Dordrecht, NL Kluwer, 1998), 171-198. 

Peter J.T. Morris, The development of acetylene chemistry and synthetic rubber by LG. Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft, 1926-1945" (Dissertation, University of Oxford, 1982) Morris, "Ambos" (ref. 2). 

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