Robert Williams (chemist)
Robert Joseph Paton Williams (born February 25, 1926 - March 21, 2015 in Oxford ) was a British chemist . He was a professor at Oxford University .
Williams studied chemistry at Merton College, Oxford University with a master's degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1950 with Harry Munroe Irving . From this work comes the Williams-Irving series of stability of complexes of ions. As a post-doctoral student he was with Arne Tiselius in Uppsala, where he developed chromatographic processes . On his return he became a lecturer in chemistry at Wadham College , Oxford. In 1965/66 he was at Harvard University with BL Vallee. During this time he turned to biochemistry. In 1972 he became reader and 1974 Napier Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford. In 1991 he retired. He was a Fellow of Wadham College. In Oxford he is a co-founder of the Oxford Enzyme Group.
In 1961 he proposed the production of ATP, driven by proton gradients, as the basis for energy supply in biology.
He was an MBE (2010) and Fellow of the Royal Society (1972), whose Royal Medal he received. In 1981 he was a Bakerian Lecturer (Natural selection of the chemical elements). He was a foreign member of the Belgian, Czechoslovak, Portuguese and Swedish Academies of Science. In 1993 he was elected a member of the Academia Europaea . Williams has received several honorary doctorates (Leuven, Leicester, Keele, Lisbon, University of East Anglia).
He published a book on the history of chemistry at Oxford.
Fonts
- with CSG Phillips Inorganic Chemistry , Oxford University Press 1965
- with JJR Fraústo da Silva: The Chemistry of Evolution. The development of our Ecosystem , Elsevier 2006
- The same The biological chemistry of the elements: the inorganic chemistry of life , 2nd edition, Oxford University Press 2001 (first 1991)
- Editor with John S. Rowlinson , Allan Chapman : Chemistry at Oxford: a history from 1600 to 2005 , Cambridge, Royal Society of Chemistry 2009
- Editor Bioinorganic chemistry: trace element evolution from anaerobes to aerobes , Springer 1998 (with B. Abolmaali)
Web links
- Biography with photo at the University of Oxford
- Biography at Debretts
- In memoriam, RJP (Bob) Williams
- Literature by and about Robert Williams (chemist) in the WorldCat bibliographic database
Individual evidence
- ^ Membership directory: Robert Williams. Academia Europaea, accessed January 11, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Williams, Robert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Williams, Robert Joseph Paton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 25, 1926 |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 21, 2015 |
| Place of death | Oxford |