Arthur Robert von Hippel was born on November 19, 1898 in Rostock, Germany. During the 1920’s he was enrolled in the Institute for Applied Electricity at the University of Gottingen were well known physicists were figuring how to work with quantum mechanics. In 1927. He went to University of California at Berkeley for the study of the element mercury. He was an assistant professor at the Physikalische Institute in Gottingen from 1929 to 1933. In the late 1930’s he moved to Cambridge, Massachusets. Professor Karl Compton of MIT, offered Hippel a job as an electrical engineer profesor at his prestigious university. During the 1930’s von Hippel wondred about the molecular events hiding behind microscopic properties. As a professor, Hipple started researching, trying to find the answers for his questions.(ED Rogis)

In 1940, Laboratory for Insulation Research (LIR) was founded, which regarded to the study of electrical properties of materials. He was the director of LIR for twenty-four years. (Markus Zahn)

In the 1960’s, Von Hippel introduced ‘molecular engineering’. On June 17, 1964 Professor von Hippel retired, but kept teaching. (ED Rogis) Von Hipple is distinguished for his pioneering research in molecular science and molecular engineering fields, which he has described as a "broad new discipline ... comprising the structure, formation, and properties of atoms, molecules, and ions; of gases, liquids, solids and their interfaces; the designing of materials and properties on the basis of this molecular understanding; and their imaginative application for devices." (Zahn)