William B. Jensen

William B. Jensen (born March 25, 1948 in Marshfield (Wisconsin) ) is an American chemist and chemical historian.

Jensen was the son of a sign painter and librarian and went to school in Wassau, Wisconsin. He took an early interest in chemistry and, after reading Discovery of the Elements by Mary Elvira Weeks, also in chemistry history. He studied chemistry at the University of Wisconsin – Madison with a bachelor's degree in 1970, a master's degree in 1972 and a doctorate in inorganic chemistry in 1982. He was then assistant professor of inorganic chemistry at the Rochester Institute of Technology from 1983 to 1986, before joining Oespen Became Professor of Chemistry History and Chemistry Education at the University of Cincinnati (in the Department of Chemistry). There he is also curator of the Oesper Collection on the History of Chemistry, the largest such collection in the United States apart from that at the Smithsonian.

He has an Ask the Historian column in the Journal of Chemical Education. From 1988 to 1995 he was the founding editor of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry . As a chemical historian, he is primarily concerned with the history of physical and inorganic chemistry at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, as well as the history of chemical apparatus. He endeavors to bring the history of chemistry closer to more chemistry students, detached from the history of science.

Fonts

• The Lewis Acid-Base Concepts: An Overview, Wiley 1980
• as editor: Mendeleev on the Periodic Law: Selected Writings 1869–1905, Dover 2005
• Philosophers of Fire: A Brief Outline of 600 Years of Chemical History for Students of Chemistry, Oesper Collection, Cincinnati 2003, pdf
• Editor: Lavoisier and the chemical revolution; a special bicentennial issue, Bulleton of the History of Chemistry, No. 5, 1989 (Symposium in honor of the Bicentennial of the Chemical Revolution , Dallas 1989)
• Electronegativity from Avogadro to Pauling , 2 parts, Journal of Chemical Education, Volume 73, 1996, pp. 11-20, Volume 80, 2003, pp. 279-287

Web links

• Biography at ACS , 2006 (pdf)