Kurt Alder:
Kurt Alder was a German chemist and Nobel laureate.
Birth:
July 10, 1902 in Königshütte, Prussia (now Chorzów, Poland)
Death:
June 20, 1958 in Cologne, West Germany
Claim to Fame:
Alder was a German chemist who shares the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Otto Diels for their development of diene synthesis, otherwise known as the Diels-Alder reaction. A diene is a hydrocarbon with two double bonds. The Diels-Alder reaction converts dienes and alkenes into ring molecules. It is important in the synthesis of many polymers, steroids and alkaloids.
