Bak, Børge, 1912-1990

Børge Bak (31 December 1912 – 22 February 1990), Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog 1st Class, was a Danish polymath, inventor, violinist, chemist and professor of molecular spectroscopy at the University of Copenhagen, best known for his early contributions to the field of Molecular Spectroscopy. Bak travelled widely as a visiting professor, including to Stanford University (1958), the University of California, Berkeley (1969), Columbia University in the City of New York, and the University of Bologna (1976). He served as a nominator to the Nobel Committee for Chemistry and played an instrumental role in the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry being awarded to Richard R. Ernst for his "contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy". Bak was the recipient of the 1957 Esso Foundation's prize for outstanding technical scientific research, and was elected a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences in 1958.