TY - MANSCPT DB - Science History Institute DP - Science History Institute M2 - Courtesy of Science History Institute. Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, S TI - Rudolf Signer, interviewed by Tonja A. Koeppel in Bern, Switzerland on September 30, 1986 ID - qr46r198v PB - Science History Institute CY - Philadelphia AV - Oral History Transcript 0056 VL - Oral History Transcript 0056 AN - Oral History Transcript 0056 UR - https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/qr46r198v AB - Rudolf Signer starts this interview by talking about his family background in Herisau. The Kantonschule at St. Gallen emphasized mathematics and the sciences, and there, Signer's youthful interests in astronomy and philosophy were reinforced. Study of chemistry at ETH followed, and Signer recalls some of his professors there. Graduate research on polyoxymethylenes with Staudinger introduced Signer to the young field of polymer chemistry, and he remembers the controversy about Staudinger's macromolecular hypothesis. Moving to Freiburg with Staudinger, Signer set up equipment to measure streaming birefringence, which proved a powerful technique of the solution characterization of polymers. A Rockefeller Fellowship enabled Signer to work with Svedberg at Uppsala and to apply ultracentrifugal sedimentation to synthetic polymers in organic solvents. The rest of that postdoctoral year was spent at Manchester with Bragg, where Rudolf Signer used X-rays for structural investigations. Signer also expounds on his decision to leave Freiburg and on his acceptance of a chair at the University of Berne. The interview includes mention of much research made at Berne, including the isolation and characterization of nucleic acids, water-protein interactions, molecular separation techniques and the thermodynamics of polymer solutions. Signer concludes with recollections of a post-war tour of the United States and of his memories of Staudinger. KW - Universität Bern KW - Chemists KW - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich KW - Signer, Rudolf, 1903-1990 KW - Universität Freiburg im Breisgau KW - Chemists--Biography LA - English ER -