Roald Hoffmann
Roald Hoffmann was born in Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine on July 18th, 1937 and is the Chemist. At the age of 87, Roald Hoffmann biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 87 years old, Roald Hoffmann physical status not available right now. We will update Roald Hoffmann's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.
Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran) is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
He has also published plays and poetry.
He is the Frank H. Rhodes Professor of Humanities Letters Emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Early life
Hoffmann was born in Zoczów, Poland's Second Polish Republic (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), to a Polish-Jewish family, and was named in honor of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Clara (Rosen), a teacher, and Hillel Safran, a civil engineer, were among his parents. His family was placed in a labor camp where his father, who was familiar with a large portion of the local infrastructure, was a respected prisoner until Germany invaded Poland and occupied the town. The family bribed guards to allow an escape as the situation became more volatile, with prisoners being moved to extermination camps. Hoffmann, his mother, two uncles, and an aunt had to hide in the attic and a storeroom of the local schoolhouse, where they lived for eighteen months, from January 1943 to June 1944, while Hoffmann was aged 5 to 7.
His father survived in the labor camp but was allowed to return occasionally until he was tortured and killed by the Germans for his part in a plot to arm the camp prisoners. His mother tried to mask her sadness by writing down her thoughts in a notebook her husband was using to take notes on a relativity textbook she had been reading when she learned about it. Hoffmann kept himself amused by teaching him to read and having him memorize geography from textbooks stored in the attic and then quizzing him on it. He described the experience as having been enveloped in a cocoon of love.
The majority of the family was killed in the Holocaust, though one grandmother and a few others survived. They immigrated to the United States on the troop carrier Ernie Pyle in 1949.
Hoffmann and his adult son (by then a five-year-old) were in Zolochiv in 2006, but the attic, which he had hidden, was still intact, but the storeroom had been converted, ironically enough, into a chemistry classroom. On Hoffmann's initiative, a monument to Holocaust victims was built in Zolochiv in 2009.
Personal life
Eva Börjesson married Hoffmann in 1960. They have two children, Hillel Jan and Ingrid Helena.
He is an atheist.
Hoffmann graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he received a Westinghouse science scholarship. In 1958, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College). In 1960, he received his Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. While working under joint responsibility of Martin Gouterman and subsequent Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner William N. Lipscomb, Jr., Hoffman developed polyhedral molecules. Lawrence Lohr and Roald Hoffmann were both instrumental in Lipscomb's direction. Hoffmann later developed this technique. He went to Cornell in 1965 and has been there ever since, most recently as professor emeritus.