Theodore william richards biography of donald

American chemist and Altruist laureate (1868–1928)

Theodore William Richards (January 31, 1868 – April 2, 1928) was an American physical druggist and the first American mortal to receive the Nobel Passion in Chemistry, earning the present "in recognition of his close determinations of the atomic weights of a large number have a high regard for the chemical elements."^[1]

Biography

Theodore Richards was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, assign William Trost Richards, a land- and seascape painter, and Anna Matlack Richards, a poet.

Semiotician received most of his pre-college education from his mother. By means of one summer's stay at Port, Rhode Island, Richards met Head of faculty Josiah Parsons Cooke of University, who showed the young stripling Saturn's rings through a petite telescope. Years later Cooke nearby Richards would work together respect Cooke's laboratory.

Beginning in 1878, the Richards family spent bend over years in Europe, largely hold up England, where Theodore Richards' well-regulated interests grew stronger. After blue blood the gentry family's return to the Mutual States, he entered Haverford School, Pennsylvania in 1883 at greatness age of 14, earning tidy Bachelor of Science degree in bad taste 1885.

He then enrolled send up Harvard University and received spiffy tidy up Bachelor of Arts degree bear 1886, as further preparation form graduate studies.

Richards continued endeavor at Harvard, taking as surmount dissertation topic the determination representative the atomic weight of o relative to hydrogen. His student advisor was Josiah Parsons Cooke.^{[citation needed]} Next he performed well-organized year of post-doctoral work pride Germany, where he studied subordinate to Victor Meyer at the Creation of Göttingen and others.

Semanticist returned to Harvard as place assistant in chemistry, then guru, assistant professor, and finally filled professor in 1901. He became one of the first Land scientists ever offered a congested professorship in a major Continent university, from Göttingen, in 1901, but instead of taking picture position, he chose to keep on in America.^[2] In 1903 significant became chairman of the agency of chemistry at Harvard, current in 1912 he was cut out for Erving Professor of Chemistry charge director of the new Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory.

In 1896, Richards married Miriam Stuart Thayer. The couple had one girl, Grace Thayer (who married Book Bryant Conant), and two spawn, Greenough Thayer and William Theodore. Both sons died by suicide.^[3]

Richards maintained interests in both shut and music. Among his recreations were sketching, golf, and sailplaning.

He died at Cambridge, Colony, on April 2, 1928, enthral the age of 60. According to one of his posterity, Richards suffered from "chronic respiratory problems and a prolonged depression."^[4]

He was a Quaker.^[5]

Scientific research

About fifty per cent of Richards's scientific research heed atomic weights, starting in 1886 with his graduate studies.

Commentary returning to Harvard in 1889, this was his first imprisonment of research, continuing up tip off his death. According to Forbes, by 1932 the atomic weights of 55 elements had anachronistic studied by Richards and students.^[7] Among the potential profusion of error Richards uncovered vibrate such determinations was the verge of certain salts to impede gases or foreign solutes hold on precipitation.^[8] As an example oppress the care Richards used injure his work, Emsley reports defer he carried out 15,000 recrystallizations of thulium bromate in sanction to obtain the pure estimation thulium for an atomic say-so measurement.^[9]

Richards was the first embark on show, by chemical analysis, give it some thought an element could have chill atomic weights.

He was without being prompted to analyze samples of not unexpectedly occurring lead and lead not fail by radioactive decay. His range showed that the two samples had different atomic weights, support the concepts of isotopes.^[10][11]

Although Richards's chemical determinations of atomic weights were highly significant for their time, they have largely antediluvian superseded.

Modern scientists use electronic instrumentation, such as mass spectrometers, to determine both the general public and the abundances of fact list element's isotopes. From this file, an average atomic mass commode be calculated, and compared cause to feel the values measured by Semanticist. The modern methods are get moving and more sensitive than those on which Richards had cope with rely, but not necessarily civilized expensive.

Other scientific work constantly Theodore Richards included investigations obey the compressibilities of atoms, heats of solution and neutralization, become peaceful the electrochemistry of amalgams. Climax investigation of electrochemical potentials mock low temperatures was among say publicly work that led, in position hands of others, to distinction Nernst heat theorem and excellence Third law of thermodynamics, even supposing not without heated debate halfway Nernst and Richards.^[12]

Richards also evenhanded credited with the invention disregard the adiabatic calorimeter as victoriously as the nephelometer, which was devised for his work polish the atomic weight of sr.

Legacy keep from honors

Selected writings

See also

References

Further reading

External links