Jerome Karle dies at 94; Nobel winner in chemistry
By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times
June 23, 2013, 6:32 p.m.
When Jerome Karle learned he was to share the Nobel Prize in chemistry, the Brooklyn-born scientist was miles above the Atlantic Ocean and quite unaware that his flight was about to turn into a champagne fete.
Karle had left his hotel room in Munich, Germany, before he could receive the news from Stockholm and was instead told by the pilot, who informed the entire aircraft and invited all to toast the passenger in seat 29C.
"It will take at least 24 hours for this to sink in," Karle told reporters after his arrival in Washington, D.C.
Indeed, it had taken decades for Karle's work to sink in with the scientific community. Initially, many scientists were puzzled by and skeptical of the methods and mathematical formulas he had used to describe crystal molecules after bombarding them with X-rays. By the time he and his colleague, mathematician Herbert A. Hauptman, were awarded the Nobel in 1985, their technique had been used to study poisons, heart drugs, antibiotics, anti-carcinogens, anti-malarials, explosives and propellants.
Yet until Karle's death from liver cancer June 6, in Annandale, Va., the 94-year-old had hoped to see a third collaborator recognized: his chemist wife, Isabella.
Karle and others have credited Isabella with championing the practical applications of X-ray crystallography at a time when it was viewed as a theoretical curiosity. After learning of his Nobel, Karle told reporters that his wife also deserved the prize and hoped that she would one day receive the recognition. "I can't think of anyone who is more qualified than my wife," Karle said.
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