Frank Wigglesworth Clarke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Wigglesworth Clarke (born March 19, 1847 in Boston , Massachusetts, † May 23, 1931 ) was an American geologist and chemist . He is considered the father of geochemistry and determined the chemical composition of the earth's crust ( see also: Clarke value ). Clarke founded the American Chemical Society ( American Chemical Society ) and was from 1901 whose president

youth

Clarke was the son of Henry W. Clarke, a hardware dealer in Boston , Massachusetts . His mother Abby died just ten days after he was born, which is why Clarke spent the first four years of his life with his grandfather Samuel Clarke in Uxbridge , Massachusetts. In 1851 his father remarried and moved with his family to Woburn in Massachusetts and from 1858 to Worcester, also in Massachusetts.

After attending the primary school in Woburn, Clark attended secondary schools in Stoughton (Massachusetts) and in Boston at the Boston Latin School and the English High School, and after graduating from high school, he enrolled at Harvard College's Lawrence Scientific School in 1865 and graduated graduated in 1867 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Live and act

As an assistant to James Mason Crafts at Cornell University , founded in 1865, he also taught chemistry at the Boston Dental College and worked as an author of specialist articles for various newspapers. Even at this time, Clarke's interests lay in the natural constants of the specific weights of solids and liquids, whose boiling and melting points and atomic weights he determined, with which he succeeded in building an interdisciplinary bridge from chemistry to geology . He published the results of his research in 1873 under the title Evolution and the Spectroscope in Popular Science and is still considered a standard work today

In 1873 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry and physics at Howard University ( Washington, DC ), but in 1874 he moved to the University of Cincinnati . In 1883 he was appointed chief chemist of the United States Geological Survey , until 1924, he began in collaboration with Carl Barus , William Hillebrand and Henry S. Washington with extensive mineral and rock analyzes, the results of which were reflected in his main work The Data of Geochemistry in 1908. A publication that is still up-to-date and highly regarded in specialist circles. At the same time, Clarke laid the foundations for the research field of geochemistry . He made special contributions to research into the mica groups .

In 1889, Clarke was a co-founder of the American Chemical Society and in 1904 was accepted as an elected member of the American Philosophical Society . Since 1909, Clarke was a member of the National Academy of Sciences .

Works

literature

  • "The Obituary of an Undertaker," Life Magazine;
  • "The Mormon Widow's Lament, The Galaxy;
  • "American colleges versus American science," 9 Pop. Sci. Monthly 467 (Aug. 1876);
  • "The higher education," 7 Pop. Sci. Monthly 402 (Aug. 1875);
  • "How to Play Solitaire, Riverside Magazine (Feb. 1870);
  • Views around Ithaca, New York; Being a description of the waterfalls and ravines of this remarkable locality (1869).
  • "Weights, measures, and money, of all nations", (1875) Online version

Honors

  • Chevalier, Legion of Honor;
  • Member, National Academy of Sciences;
  • The Wilde Medal, Council of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society;
  • The FW Clarke Award of the Geochemical Society is named after him;
  • The mineral Clarkeite was named after him;
  • On the proposal of the Russian geochemist Alexander Fersman , the abundance of chemical elements | abundances of chemical elements in the Earth's crust, as well as in other major geochemical Earth systems (hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, in the main types of rocks, etc. ) are called in Russian "the Clarkes" ("кларки").
  • Inaugural chairman of the Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights | International Committee of Atomic Weights
  • In 1903, the only American (and Unitarian) ever invited to deliver a Memorial Address before The Chemical Society.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dennis LM: Biographical Memoir of Frank Wigglesworth Clarke Frank Wigglesworth Clarke, March 19, 1847 – May 23, 1931. (PDF) National Acadamy of Sciences, 1932, p. 27 , accessed on February 20, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ Bernhard Fritscher : Clarke, Frank Wigglesworth , Lexicon of important natural scientists, 2007, Volume 1; Elsevier GmbH, Munich; P. 327; ISBN 3-8274-1883-6
  3. ↑ Dennis, LM: Frank Wiggelsworth Clarke. (PDF) National Acadamy of Sciences, p. 141 , accessed on March 2, 2020 (English).
  4. ↑ The data of geochemistry (first edition), USGS Bulletin No. 330 (1908)
  5. ↑ Bernhard Fritscher : Clarke, Frank Wigglesworth , Lexicon of important natural scientists, 2007, Volume 1; Elsevier GmbH, Munich; P. 327; ISBN 3-8274-1883-6
  6. ^ Member History: Frank W. Clarke. American Philosophical Society, accessed June 21, 2018 .
  7. ^ Member Directory: Frank Clarke. National Academy of Sciences, accessed June 21, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Clarke, Frank Wigglesworth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geologist and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1931