Frank C. Whitmore

Frank Clifford Whitmore , called Rocky, (born October 1, 1887 in North Attleboro , Massachusetts , † June 24, 1947 ) was an American chemist ( organic chemistry ).

Whitmore grew up in Atlantic City (New Jersey) and studied on a scholarship at Harvard University with a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in 1911 and a doctorate in 1914. His teachers included Charles Loring Jackson until 1912 and later TW Richards and Elmer P. Charcoal burner. He financed his studies as a sought-after tutor. In 1916 he was an instructor at William College and from 1917 to 1918 at Rice University , where he dealt with poison gases during the First World War. In 1918 he became an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota , in 1920 professor at Northwestern University , where he became the head of the chemistry department and dealt with organic mercury compounds. and finally from 1929 at the Pennsylvania State University . There he was from 1929 to 1947 Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Physics. During the Second World War, in addition to his university activities, he was a leader in various committees for the scientific support of the war effort, including organic explosives, and also conducted research in this area (plastic explosives such as RDX). He had a heavy workload before and got by with very little sleep. In 1947 he ultimately died as a result of the additional workload in World War II.

He introduced the concept of the carbocation intermediate reaction to explain organic reactions such as the addition of halogens to carbon double bonds and, in general, the concept of electronic rearrangements in molecules, which was initially received with skepticism, but later became generally accepted. He dealt intensively with the synthesis of aliphatic compounds (including complex alcohols, neopentane , Grignard reaction ). He also wrote one of the first advanced organic chemistry textbooks in the United States.

He received the Willard Gibbs Medal in 1945 and the William H. Nichols Medal in 1937 ; he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1946 , of the American Philosophical Society since 1943, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1939 . Whitmore holds three honorary degrees. In 1938 he was president of the American Chemical Society . He was co-editor of Organic Syntheses .

He had been married to the chemist Marion Gertrude Mason since 1914 and had five children.

Fonts

• Organic Chemistry of Mercury, New York 1921
• Organic Chemistry, Van Nostrand 1937, 1951

Web links

• Biography at NAS by Carl Marvel, pdf