1. science
2. chemistry

G. N. Lewis (1875-1946)
A. Langmuir(1881-1957)
M. H. Thatcher(1925 –2013)
K. Blodgett(1898 –1979)
Gilbert Newton Lewis (1875 –1946, age71)
American physical chemist known for
1)the discovery of the covalent bond
(Lewis dot structures & cubical atom
model),
2) purification of heavy water (D2O),
3) reformulation of chemical thermodynamics in
a mathematically rigorous manner (Fugacity),
4) theory of Lewis acids and bases,
5) photochemical experiments (photon, triplet).
Issue 1) Chemical Bond
In 1916(age 41), he published a paper on chemical
bonding "The Atom and the Molecule” in which he
formulated the idea of covalent bond, consisting of
a shared pair of electrons, and he defined the term
odd molecule (free radical) when an electron is not
shared. He included Lewis dot structures as well as
the cubical atom model.
These ideas on chemical bonding were expanded
upon by Irving Langmuir and became the inspiration
for the studies on the nature of the chemical bond
by Linus Pauling.
Issue 4) Lewis Acid & Base
In 1923(age 48), he formulated the
electron-pair theory of acid-base reactions.
In the so-called Lewis theory of acids and
bases, a "Lewis acid" is an electron-pair
acceptor and a "Lewis base" is an electronpair donor.
Great Concept In Chemistry:
Lewis acid&base, Brønsted acid&base,
Pearson’s HSAB
Issue 6) Why he was not able to get N prize?????
He was a professor of chemistry at MIT (age 36), and
the University of California, Berkeley (age 37).
Although he never won the award he was nominated
for a Nobel Prize 35 times.
See Wikipedia encyclopedia
● G. N. Lewis vs. V. Nernst (1920, Nobel Prize
in chemistry, thermodynamics)
● His student Harold Urey (1934 Nobel Prize
in chemistry, the discovery of deuterium D2)
● His posdoc Glenn T. Seaborg(1951 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry, discovery of the transuranium elements)
● Irving Langmuir (1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry,
Discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry )
Issue 6) Death & Mystery
In 1946, a graduate student found Lewis's lifeless
body under a laboratory workbench at Berkeley.
Lewis had been working on an experiment with
liquid hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and deadly fumes
from a broken line had leaked into the laboratory.
However, some believe that it may have been a
suicide.
●Why ?
●Why he did not win the Nobel Award even was
nominated so many times?
See Wikipedia encyclopedia(G. N. Lewis vs. V.
Nernst, His student )
If Lewis's death was indeed a suicide, a possible
explanation was depression brought on by a
lunch with Irving Langmuir. Langmuir and Lewis
had a long rivalry, dating back to Langmuir's
extensions of Lewis's theory of the chemical
bond.
Langmuir had been awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize
in chemistry for his work on surface chemistry,
while Lewis had not received the Prize despite
having been nominated 35 times.
On the day of Lewis's death, Langmuir and Lewis
had met for lunch at Berkeley, a meeting that
Michael Kasha recalled only years later. Associates
reported that Lewis came back from lunch in a dark
mood, played a morose game of bridge with some
colleagues, then went back to work in his lab. An
hour later, he was found dead. Langmuir's papers at
the Library of Congress confirm that he had been on
the Berkeley campus that day to receive an
honorary degree.
Issue 2-1) D2O & Nobel Prize
In 1913 (age 38), Lewis was elected to the National
Academy of Sciences. He resigned in 1934(age 59),
refusing to state the cause for his resignation.
His decision to resign may have been
sparked by resentment over the award
of the 1934 Nobel Prize for chemistry to
his student, Harold Urey, for the
discovery of deuterium (D2), a prize
Lewis almost certainly felt he should
have shared for his work on purification and
characterization of heavy water ( Lewis was the first
to produce a pure sample of D2O in 1933 (age 58)).
Issue 2-2)
By accelerating deuterons (deuterium nuclei) in
Ernest O. Lawrence‘s cyclotron, Lewis was able to
study many of the properties of atomic nuclei.
During the 1930s, he was mentor to Glenn T.
Seaborg, who was retained for post-doctoral work as
Lewis’ personal research assistant.
Seaborg went on to win the
1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for the "discoveries in the
chemistry of the transuranium
elements” 93Np-102No,
106Sg (seaborgium)
第四遷移元素 アクチノイド系21元素(89Ac~111Rg)
Ac
Th
Pa
U
Np
Pu
Am
Cm
Bk
Cf
Es
Fm
名
アクチニウム
トリウム
プロトアクチ
ニウム
ウラン
ネプツニウム
プルトニウム
アメリシウム
キュリウム
バークリウム
キャリフォル
ニウム
アインスタイ
ニウム
フェルミウム
actinium
thorium
protactinium
uranium
neptunium
plutonium
americium
curium
berkelium
californium
einsteinium
fermium
Md
No
Lr
Rf
Db
Sg
Bh
Hs
Mt
Ds
Rg
名
メンデレビウ
ム
ノーベリウム
ローレンシウ
ム
ラザホージウ
ム
ドブニウム
シーボーギウ
ム
ボーリウム
ハッシウム
マイトネリウ
ム
ダームスタチ
ウム
レントゲニウ
ム
mendelevium
nobelium
lawrencium
rutherfordium
dubnium
seaborgium
bohrium
hassium
meitnerium
darmstadtium
roentgenium
Irving Langmuir (1881 –1957 age 76)
American chemist and physicist.
1) His most noted publication (1919,
age 38) was the famous article
"The Arrangement of Electrons in
Atoms and Molecules”.
He outlined his "concentric theory of atomic
structure building on Lewis's cubical atom
theory and W. Kossel's chemical bonding
theory “.
2) While at General Electric [1909–1950
(age 28-69)], Langmuir advanced
several basic fields of physics and
chemistry and surface science, invented
the gas-filled incandescent lamp and the
hydrogen welding technique.
improvement of the diffusion pump
● invention of the high-vacuum tube.
● discoverｙ： filling the bulb with an inert gas such
as argon lengthen the lifetime of a tungsten
filament.
● discoverｙ: atomic hydrogen→invent the atomic
hydrogen welding process (the first plasma weld ).
●
3-1) His surface chemistry began at this
point, when he discovered that molecular
hydrogen introduced into a tungstenfilament bulb dissociated into atomic
hydrogen and formed a layer one atom
thick on the surface of the bulb.
3-2) In 1917 (age 36), he published a paper on the
chemistry of oil films. He theorized that the
hydrophilic group down in the water and the
hydrophobic chains clumped together on the surface
with one molecule thick.
air
water
3-3) He joined Katharine B. Blodgett to study thin
films and surface adsorption. They introduced the
concept of a monolayer and the two-dimensional
physics which describe such a surface.
In 1932 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
"for his discoveries and investigations in surface
chemistry.“
Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898 –1979 age 81)
●The first woman to work as a scientist
for General Electric Lab. in New York.
● The first woman to be awarded a Ph.D.
in Physics from University of Cambridge.
1) During her research, she often worked
with Langmuir, who had worked with her father.
They worked on monomolecular coatings designed
to cover surfaces of water, metal, or glass.
2) In 1938 (age 40), she devised a method to spread
these monomolecular coatings one at a time onto
glass or metal. This coating is now called the
Langmuir-Blodgett film. The Langmuir-Blodgett
trough is also named after her.
Langmuir-Blodgett trough
& Langmuir-Blodgett film
Monomolecular layer
She also invented the color gauge, a method to
measure the molecular coatings on the glass to
one millionth of an inch. The "color gauge"
employs the concept that different thicknesses of
coatings are different colors. She saw that soap
bubbles were different colors and discovered that
at each place that the soap bubble was a new
color, it has a different thickness. She made a glass
"ruler" to show different colors corresponding to
the thicknesses. Measuring thickness became as
simple as matching colors.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher,
(1925-2013) She was a Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom.
Originally she was a research chemist before
becoming a barrister. Studied chemistry at
Somerville College, Oxford. She arrived at Oxford in
1943 and graduated in 1947 (four-year Chemistry
Bachelor of Science Degree); she studied LangmuirBlodgett films, in her final year she specialized in Xray crystallography under the supervision
Of Dorothy Hodgkin (1964 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry, vitamin B12).
Experimentalists & Theoreticians
Nano & Fusion
Nano & Fusion (1)
Wikipedia
Sir Humphry Davy(Chemistry 1778-1829)
● 1807— Discover several alkali and
alkaline earth metals (Na, K, Ca, Mg, Ba, B)
by electrolysis using voltaic pile
●laughing gas(nitrous gas N2O)
●First arc lamp, ●Davy lamp
Michael Faraday
(Scientist, Chemist 1791-1867)
● electrochemistry, electromagnetism
●benzene, ● Bunsen burner with Davy
● metallic Au nanoparticle•••nanoscience
●environmental science
Nano & Fusion (2)
Robert Bunsen(Chemistry 1811-1899)
● Organometallic compd. almost died &
lost sight in his right eye •••cacodyl (organo
arsenic molecule) •••Me radical
● Bunsen cell battery(1841 Pt→ C)
●Photochemistry ● Bunsen burner
Gustav Kirchhoff(Physics, Chemistry 18241887) ● Kirchhoff’ laws (circuit theory,
thermodynamics) ● Spectroscopy•••black
body radiation
● Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award for spectroscopy
● 1860-61 Bunsen & Kirchhoff discovered Cs &
Rb by spectrum analysis
Cs Forty tons of mineral water from Dürkheim was
concentrated to isolate 17 g of deep blue element
They were the first recipients of the prestigious
Davy Medal for their researches & discoveries in
spectrum analysis
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (12 March 1824 – 17 October 1887) German
physicist. He coined the term “black body 黒体輻射" radiation in
1862, and two different sets of concepts (one in circuit theory, and
one in thermodynamics) are named "Kirchhoff's laws" after him;
there is also a Kirchhoff's Law in thermochemistry.
ローベルト・ブンゼンとともに、分光学研究に取り組み、セシウムとル
ビジウムを発見した。フラウンホーファーが発見した太陽光スペクト
ルの暗線（フラウンホーファー線）がナトリウムのスペクトルと同じ位
置に見られることを明らかにし、分光学的方法により太陽の構成元
素を同定できることを示した。
The current entering any junction is equal to
the current leaving that junction. i2 + i3 = i1 + i4
フラウンホーファー線は、一連のスペクトルで、ドイツの物理学者ヨゼフ・フォン・フラウン
ホーファーの名前に由来する。太陽光の可視光スペクトルのなかに暗線として観測された。
1802年、イギリスのウイリアム・ウォラストンが、太陽光のスペクトルのなかにいくつかの暗
線の存在を報告した。1814年にフラウンホーファーは、ウォーラストンとは別に、暗線を発
見し、系統的な研究を行い、570を超える暗線について波長を計測した。主要な線にAから
Kの記号をつけ、弱い線については別の記号をつけた。
グスタフ・キルヒホッフとローベルト・ブンゼンによって、それぞれの線が、太陽の上層に存
在するいろいろな元素や地球の大気中の酸素などによって吸収されたスペクトルであるこ
とが示された。
他の恒星のドップラー効果によるフラウンホーファー線の波長のズレを調べることで、その
恒星と太陽系との相対速度を知ることができる
Na D1, D2
He D3
O2 B, a
Nano & Fusion (3)
Charles(良男) J. Pedersen(Chemistry, 1904-1989)
● Synthesis of Crown ethers, ● Naked anion
Born in Pusan(釜山), Korea, Norwegian father
and Japanese mother •• International school in
Yokohama •• Univ. Dayton in Ohio (at 18) ••MIT
••DuPont(at 23). At 63(1967), he published two papers about
crown ethers →At 83(1987) received Nobel Prize with Donald
Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn. Supramolecule
Cs+
Crown ether to detect Cs+ by
Nano & Fusion (4)
Linus C. Pauling (1901–1994) (Chemist, Biochemist,
Peace activist, Author, Educator)
Oregon Agricultural College (16).
● In his last two years at school, Pauling
became aware of the work of Gilbert N.
Lewis and Irving Langmuir on the
electronic structure of atoms and their
bonding to form molecules.→ ● Caltech
(Crystallography) → ●Guggenheim
Fellowship to study under A.
Sommerfeld, N. Bohr, E. Schrödinger →
● Quantum chemistry
New concept: hybridization
The Nature of the Chemical Bond(1939)
1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
● Valence Bond Theory(Quantum chemistry)
● Biological Molecule
● Molecular Genetics
● Molecular Medicine ??
•Pauling is notable for the diversity of his
interests: quantum mechanics, inorganic
chemistry, organic chemistry, protein
structure, molecular biology, and medicine. In
all these fields, and especially on the
boundaries between them, he made decisive
contributions.
• Pauling's work on crystal structure
contributed significantly to the prediction and
elucidation of the structures of complex
minerals and compounds.
• His discovery of the alpha helix and beta
sheet is a fundamental foundation for the
study of protein structure
L. Pauling as an educator
Williams Lipscomb (Boron Chemistry, Biochemistry)
1976
Lipscomb’s student R. Hoffman (Extended Hückel)
1981, T.A.Steitz, A. Yonath(Bio) 2009
Martin Karplus(Theory, Molecular dynamics) 2013
Pauling
Lipscomb
Karplus
Hoffman
Steitz
Yonath