Childhood and major influences; college education at Harvard University; position at Edward C. Worden Co., position at Columbia University's chemistry department as a graduate student and instructor, as a professor, and as the department chairman; history of chemistry department's administration. Major emphasis on his research results and papers spanning his entire career; Hammett equation and acidity theory; his contact with students Henry P. Treffers, Martin Paul, Lois Zucker.

Born in Mexico; interested in geology at a young age. Attended Harvard University, majoring in geology; formal physics education limited to half a term; early contacts with Edward M. Purcell, Julian R. Schwinger, and Nicolaas Bloembergen; James Thomson, Albert F. Burch, and George Kennedy most influential teachers; early interest in science policy.

Early life in Illinois; B.S. from Purdue University under Karl Lark-Horovitz, 1929-1933. Visit to Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. Theoretical and experimental work and teaching at Harvard University, 1934-1941, under Emory L. Chaffee, Kenneth T. Bainbridge, John Van Vleck. World War II research on radar at MIT Radiation Laboratory, 1941-1946. Return to Harvard; teaching, nuclear magnetic resonance and 21-cm line research. Discusses government consulting work, 1950-1970, especially President's Science Advisory Committee, American Physical Society presidency; teaching at Harvard.

Life of his father, Karl Schwarzschild; father's scientific relationships in Göttingen (Felix Klein, David Hilbert); move to Potsdam, 1909; relations with Potsdam and Berlin scientists (Albert Einstein, Karl Sommerfeld); father's Jewish background concealed. M. Schwarzschild's youth in Göttingen and Berlin; early education, interest in astronomy and mathematics. Undergraduate at Göttingen Universität (Hans Kienle, Richard Courant, Neugebauer), 1930-1933; graduate work at Gottingen Observatory, 1933-1935; his reaction to Nazism.