One of a set of twins, Odd Hassel was born May 17, 1897, in Kristiana (now Oslo), Norway. His father Ernst was a gynecologist. His mother, Mathilde Klaveness Hassel, raised her four sons and one daughter alone after her husband died when Odd was eight years old. While his brothers, including his twin Lars, entered law and civil engineering, Hassel chose a different route. The interest he developed in chemistry during high school evolved into his major area of study at the University of Oslo, which he entered in 1915.

In 1922 he worked at K. Fajans's laboratory in Munich where he discovered adsorption indicators, organic dyes used in the analysis of silver and halide ions for greater accuracy. He returned to school to study at the University of Berlin, a center for chemistry and physics, where he was recommended for and received a Rockefeller scholarship. He earned his doctorate in 1924.

While...