Louis Frederick Fieser

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Louis Frederick Fieser (1965)

Louis Frederick Fieser (born April 7, 1899 in Columbus , Ohio , † July 25, 1977 in Belmont , Massachusetts ) was an American chemist . He was a professor at Harvard University from 1937 to 1967 and is considered the inventor of napalm .

Life

Fieser completed a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Williams College and was on the 1924 Harvard University at James Bryant Conant doctorate . From 1924 to 1925 Fieser worked as a post-doctoral student at the University of Oxford in William Henry Perkin's group and at the University of Frankfurt am Main in Julius von Braun's group . Between 1925 and 1930 Fieser worked at Bryn Mawr College, where he met his future wife. Then he moved to Harvard University. In 1933 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1940 to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1941 to the American Philosophical Society .

Act

He became known around 1939 primarily through the synthesis of vitamin K1 and his work on steroids. Together with his wife Mary Fieser , he wrote several textbooks on organic chemistry.

From the NDRC , founded in 1940, he took over the task of synthesizing nitro compounds suitable for use as explosives.

From May 1941, after an explosion of divinylacetylene occurred in a DuPont plant , he was supposed to investigate its military usability.

Fieser was also tasked with developing poison gas, but convinced the military that the development of incendiary bombs was more urgent. He then developed a gel based on rubber and gasoline. When the rubber-growing areas came under Japanese control with the attack on Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941, Fieser looked for a replacement for rubber. In 1943 he registered a patent for what would later become “ napalm ” (formed from the words naphthenic acid and palmitic acid ). He waived any income from his invention when it was used for government purposes. He described the circumstances in his book The Scientific Method, A Personal Account of Usual Projects in War and in Peace .

Fonts

  • Louis and Mary Fieser: Organic Chemistry. 2nd Edition. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1972, ISBN 3-527-25075-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data, publications and academic family tree of Louis Frederick Fieser at academictree.org, accessed on January 1, 2018.
  2. ^ Member History: Louis F. Fieser. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 5, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Patent US2606107 : Incendiary gels. Registered November 1, 1943 , published August 5, 1952 , inventor: Louis F. Fieser. ‌
  4. ^ Louis F. Fieser: The Scientific Method . A Personal Account of Usual Projects in War and in Peace. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1964 ( PDF ).
personal data
SURNAME Fieser, Louis Frederick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Columbus , Ohio , United States
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1977
Place of death Belmont , Massachusetts , United States