Thiele was born in Ratibor,
Prussia, now
Racibórz,
Poland. Thiele studied
mathematics at the
University of Breslau but later turned to chemistry, receiving his
doctorate from
Halle in 1890 . He taught at the
University of Munich from 1893 to 1902, when he was appointed professor of chemistry at
Strasbourg. He developed the preparation of
glyoxal bis(guanylhydrazone). After
Kekulé's proposal for
benzene structure in 1865, Thiele suggested a "Partial Valence Hypothesis", which concerned
double and triple carbon-carbon bonds with which he explains their particular reactivity. In 1899 this led to the prediction of the
resonance that existed in
benzene, and he proposed a resonance structure, by using a broken circle to represent the partial bonds. Later this problem was completely solved with the advent of
quantum theory. In 1899, Thiele was head of
Organic Chemistry at the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences in
Munich. With his associate Otto Holzinger, he synthesised an iminodibenzyl nucleus: two benzene rings attached together by a nitrogen atom and an ethylene bridge. He discovered the condensation of
ketones and
aldehydes with
cyclopentadiene as a route to
fulvenes. ==References==