Manfred Eigen

Manfred Eigen was a scientist who thought in microseconds. Born in Bochum, Germany, his early studies in physics and chemistry were interrupted by World War II, where he served in an anti-aircraft unit. After the war, he dove into research at the University of Göttingen, driven by a fundamental question: how fast do molecules interact? The chemical reactions that underpin life—enzyme catalysis, nerve impulses—happen in thousandths of a second, far too quick for the tools of his day. Eigen, with a physicist's ingenuity, devised elegant methods using sound waves and sudden temperature jumps to trigger and observe these fleeting events. His techniques, developed at the Max Planck Institute, opened a window into a previously invisible world, allowing scientists to clock the steps of photosynthesis and DNA replication. This work earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967, shared with colleagues. Never content, Eigen later turned his mind to the origins of life itself, proposing theories of molecular evolution where self-replicating molecules compete in a kind of Darwinian test tube, bridging chemistry and biology.