Keith James Laidler

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Keith James Laidler (born January 3, 1916 in Liverpool , † August 26, 2003 ) was a British-Canadian chemist ( physical chemistry ) and chemical historian.

Life

Laidler went to school in Liverpool and studied chemistry at Cambridge University (Trinity College) with a bachelor’s degree in 1934 and at Oxford University where he received his master’s degree and received his PhD in physical chemistry (kinetics) in 1938 (D. Sc.). He was a student of Cyril Norman Hinshelwood . He then went to the USA and received his doctorate (Ph.D.) from Princeton University under Henry Eyring in 1940 with the thesis The Kinetics of Reactions in Condensed and Heterogeneous Systems . During the Second World War he worked in England for the Canadian government. In 1955 he became a professor at the University of Ottawa . In 1981 he retired, but continued to give lectures.

He contributed to the Eyring theory (Transition State Theory) and dealt with the physical chemistry (kinetics) of enzymes as well as with the history of physical chemistry (in particular with his book The world of physical chemistry ).

In 1996 he received the Dexter Award (he gave the corresponding lecture on the different chemist styles of Henry Eyring and Nevil Sidgwick ). He had been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1960 , receiving its Queen's Jubilee Medal (1977), Centenary Medal (1982) and Henry Marshall Tory Medal (1987).

The Chemical Institute of Canada's Keith J. Laidler Award for Physical Chemistry is named after him.

Fonts

About chemistry and physical chemistry:

  • with Henry Eyring, Samuel Glasstone : The Theory of Rate Processes: The Kinetics of Chemical Reactions, Viscosity, Diffusion, and Electrochemical Phenomena, McGraw Hill 1941
  • Chemistry of Enzymes, 1954
  • The Chemical Kinetics of Excited States, 1955
  • The Chemical Kinetics of Enzyme Reactions, Clarendon Press 1958
  • Reaction Kinetics, 2 volumes, Pergamon Press 1963
    • German edition: reaction kinetics, 2 volumes, BI university pocket books, 1970, 1973
  • with Peter S. Bunting: The Chemical Kinetics of Enzyme Action, 1958, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1973
  • Principles of Chemistry, 1966
  • Theories of Chemical Reaction Rates, McGraw Hill 1969
  • Physical Chemistry with Biological Applications 1978
  • Physical Chemistry 1982
  • Chemical Kinetics, 3rd Edition, Harper and Row 1983

About chemistry history:

  • The World of Physical Chemistry, Oxford University Press 1993
  • with M. Christine King: The Development of Transition State Theory, Journal of Physical Chemistry 1983
  • The Development of the Arrhenius Equation, Journal of Chemical Education, 1984
  • A Century of Solution Chemistry, Pure and Applied Chemistry, 1990
  • Lessons from the History of Chemistry, Accounts of Chemical Research 1995
  • Van't Hoff and the Scientific Imagination, Chemical Intelligencer, 2000

Popular science books:

  • To Light Such a Candle: Chapters in the History of Science and Technology, 1998
  • Energy and the Unexpected 2002
  • The Harmonious Universe: The Beauty and Unity of Scientific Understanding 2004
  • Science and Sensibility: The Elegant Logic of the Universe, 2004

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Keith James Laidler at academictree.org, accessed on February 25 2018th
personal data
SURNAME Laidler, Keith James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laidler, Keith J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Canadian chemist (physical chemistry) and chemical historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 2003