Gerhard Herzberg (born 25.12.1904) is a Canadian experimental physicist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1939), of which he was president in 1966—67. He was born in Hamburg. He graduated from the Higher Technical School in Darmstadt (1928). In 1929—30 he worked at the University of Bristol, and in 1930—35 at the Higher Technical School in Darmstadt. In 1935 he emigrated to Canada. In 1935—45 he was professor of physics at the University of Saskatchewan, in 1945—48 professor of spectroscopy at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, and from 1949 he has worked at the National Research Council of Canada (Ottawa), where in 1955—69 he was director of the Division of Pure Physics.
His main research was in the field of atomic and molecular spectroscopy, in particular the experimental study of the optical spectra of molecules over a wide range of wavelengths and the determination of the structure of diatomic and polyatomic molecules. His research provided the basis for the development of the theory of molecular spectra and of the structure of simple molecules. He studied in detail the spectra of many diatomic molecules, obtained the spectra of the molecules B2, BN, NP, CP, CH, SiH+, ArH and C2+, drew up a systematics of the electronic states of a number of molecules and ions, and measured their dissociation energies and other constants. A considerable place in Herzberg's work is taken by the study of the spectra of polyatomic radicals; he studied the spectra and the structure of the radicals C3, CH2, CH3, BH2, NH2, SiCl, HNCH and others. He used spectroscopic studies to identify certain molecules in the atmospheres of the planets, in comets and in interstellar space. In 1941 he discovered interstellar CH+, developed a method of detecting molecular hydrogen H2 in interstellar gas and in the atmospheres of the giant planets, and in 1948 was the first to obtain the spectrum of H2 under laboratory conditions. For his work on the electronic structure and geometry of molecules, and particularly of free radicals, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1971.
A member of many academies of sciences and scientific societies. The J. Gibbs (1969), M. Faraday (1970) and L. Pauling (1971) medals and others.