biography
| name: |
Reinitzer, Friedrich
|
pronunciation:
[riynitser]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1857–1927)
|
| biography:
| Botanist, born in Austria. In 1888, while observing the chemical reactions of cholesterol benzoate, he noted that this compound had two different melting points: at 149°C the solid became an opaque liquid, and at 179°C it became clear. He communicated his findings to German physicist Otto Lehmann (1855-1922) who discovered that, during its opaque phase, the salt in question showed areas of crystalline molecular structures which he termed ‘liquid crystals’. |
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