Hauptman, Herbert A (1917– )

US mathematician who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1985 with Jerome Karle for discovering a general method of determining crystal structures by X-ray diffraction. Previously, crystallographers had to make assumptions or guess to determine a crystal structure using X-ray diffraction. The work of Hauptman and Karle made it possible to calculate crystal structure directly from measurements of the intensities of the diffracted X-rays.

Hauptman was born in New York City and educated in mathematics at the City College of New York and Columbia University. In 1947, he began the collaboration with Karle at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, developing mathematical methods in X-ray crystallography. At the same time Hauptman enrolled in the doctoral programme at the University of Maryland. By 1954, when he was awarded his doctorate, the two men had laid the foundations of the direct method in X-ray crystallography. In 1970, he joined the Medical Foundation of Buffalo, New York, becoming research director in 1972.