Week 5

Week 5: Jan. 29 – Feb. 4 (Archive)

January 29

  • Born in 1838, Edward Morley performed ether drift experiments with A. A. Mickelson; made extremely accurate determination of combining weights of hydrogen (H, 1) and oxygen (O, 8).

January 30

  • Born in 1862, George G. Henderson was a researcher on catalysis.
  • Born in 1891, Harold Booth was a researcher in inorganic chemistry, particularly fluoride gases.
  • Born in 1949, Peter Agre shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2003) with Roderick MacKinnon "for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes," specifically "for the discovery of water channels."

January 31

  • Born in 1868, Theodore W. Richards was a researcher on atomic weights, electrochemistry, and thermodynamics; discovered isotopes of lead from uranium and thorium (1913); Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1914) "in recognition of his accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements."
  • Born in 1881, Irving Langmuir received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1932) "for his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry."

February 1

  • Emilio SergrÉ, who was born on this date in 1905, codiscovered technetium (Tc, 43) with C. Peter in 1937 and Astatine with K. R. MacKenzie in 1940. He and others also demonstrated the antiproton in 1955.

February 2

  • Jean Baptiste Boussingault, who was born on this date in 1802, demonstrated that plants absorb nitrogen from soil in the form of nitrates and not from the air as previously believed.

February 3

  • Leonora Neuffer Bilger, born on this date in 1893, researched asymmetric nitrogen compounds and won the Garvan Medal in 1953.
  • Crompton & Knowles was incorporated on this date in 1900.

February 4

  • Do you know of a chemistry related event that occurred on this day? Tell us about it!