Theodore William Richards

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Theodore William Richards

Theodore William Richards (born January 31, 1868 in Germantown , † April 2, 1928 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) ) was an American chemist .

Richards received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1914 "in recognition of his precise determination of the atomic weight of numerous chemical elements " .

Life

Richards was the son of a nautical and landscape painter, was in his youth with his parents two years in England and attended Haverford College with a bachelor's degree (B. Sc.) In 1885. He studied from 1885 at Harvard University with a bachelor's degree -Degree (BA) in 1886 and a doctorate in chemistry with Josiah Parsons Cooke in 1888. In his dissertation, he determined the relative atomic weight of oxygen in relation to hydrogen. As a post-doctoral student he spent a year in Germany (including with Victor Meyer ) at the University of Göttingen , then was an assistant at Harvard, in 1891 an instructor, in 1894 an assistant professor and in 1901 a professor, and from 1903 he was head of the chemistry faculty. In 1912 he became Erving Professor of Chemistry and Director of the newly established Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory .

He was a Quaker and his hobbies were drawing, golf and sailing. In 1896 he married Miriam Stuart Thayer, with whom he had a daughter, who married James Bryant Conant , and two sons.

plant

His work on the exact determination of atomic mass began in 1886 and in 1912 he had determined the atomic mass of over 30 elements with great care and by 1932 with his students of 55. In his measurements on lead, he was the first to find indications of existence through chemical analysis of isotopes .

He also dealt with temperature measurement (calibrating thermometers at the temperatures at which certain salts change their hydration number ) and calorimetry ( adiabatic calorimeter ), compressibility of atoms, electrochemistry of amalgams and his work on electrochemical potentials at low temperatures played a role in the development of the Nernst theorem by Walther Nernst , which led to heated debates with Richards. He invented a nephelometer while working on the atomic weight of strontium .

Honors

He received the Davy Medal (1910), the Faraday Lecture and Prize (1911), the Willard Gibbs Medal (1912), the Franklin Medal (1916) and in 1922 the Lavoisier Medal and Le Blanc Medal. In 1914 he was president of the American Chemical Society , 1917 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and 1919 to 1921 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , to which he was elected in 1891. Since 1899 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and since 1902 of the American Philosophical Society . Since 1919 he was a foreign member of the Royal Society and since 1923 an honorary member ( Honorary Fellow ) of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . In 1927 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences . He was a member of the International Committee on Atomic Weights.

literature

Web links

Commons : Theodore William Richards  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 2, 2020 .
  2. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter R. Académie des sciences, accessed on February 21, 2020 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Richards, Theodore William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Germantown
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1928
Place of death Cambridge, Massachusetts