Science & invention
Kazimierz Fajans
1887–1975 · physical chemist
Polish-born pioneer of radioactivity and co-discoverer of protactinium, who taught at the University of Michigan from 1936 after leaving Nazi Germany.
- Born
Warsaw, Poland- Died
Ann Arbor, Michigan
aged 87- Also known as
- Kasimir Fajans
- Detroit years
- 1936–1975
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Fajans was born in Warsaw in 1887 and trained in Germany and England, working with Ernest Rutherford in Manchester. In 1913 he formulated, at the same time as Frederick Soddy, the radioactive displacement law, which explains how an element shifts in the periodic table when it gives off alpha or beta radiation, and with Oswald Göhring he identified a short-lived isotope of the element later named protactinium. He became a professor in Munich, but as a Jewish scientist he left Nazi Germany in 1935. The next year he joined the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he taught and did research on chemical bonding for more than two decades; his rules for predicting whether a bond is ionic or covalent are still taught as Fajans' rules. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize but never received it. He died in Ann Arbor in 1975.
Highlights
- Soddy–Fajans radioactive displacement law (1913)
- Co-discovered protactinium (as 'brevium') with Oswald Göhring, 1913
- Fajans' rules on ionic and covalent bonding
- University of Michigan faculty member from 1936
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1936–1957
University of Michigan
He taught and researched chemistry here after leaving Munich.