In Memoriam: René Dybkaer

Abstract

Abstract I first met René when the IUPAC General Assembly came to Brisbane Australia in 2001. IUPAC was not an organization I (then) knew much about, but I found myself confronted by Paul De Bièvre demanding that I join a task group on metrological traceability. At the time I would not have called myself a metrologist in chemistry (MiC) or in any other field. The great minds assembled for the project were Paul De Bièvre, René Dybkaer, Ales Fajgelj, and me. I had no idea that our task would take ten years (finally published as De Bièvre, P.; Dybkaer, R.; Fajgelj, A.; Hibbert, D. B.: Metrological traceability of measurement results in chemistry: Concepts and implementation (IUPAC Technical report) Pure Appl. Chem. 2011, 83, 1873-1935), and that during the time I would come to form strong friendships with my comrades in the “Gang of Four.” Paul is no longer with us and now René has left the stage.