Herman Francis Mark

Herman Francis Mark (born Hermann Franz Mark; May 3, 1895, Vienna – April 6, 1992, Austin, Texas) was an Austrian-American chemist regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science. Mark's X-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers provided important evidence for the macromolecular theory of polymer structure. Together with Houwink he formulated an equation, now called the Mark–Houwink or Mark–Houwink–Sakurada equation, describing the dependence of the intrinsic viscosity of a polymer on its relative molecular mass (molecular weight). He was a long-time faculty at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.^[1] In 1946, he established the Journal of Polymer Science.