Willard Libby
Encyclopedia
Willard Frank Libby was an American physical chemist
noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating
, a process which revolutionized archaeology
.
Libby was born in Grand Valley, Colorado
. He received his B.S. in 1931 and Ph.D. in 1933 in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley
, where he then became a lecturer and later assistant professor. Libby spent the 1930s building sensitive geiger counter
s to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. In 1941 he joined Berkeley's chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma
.
Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
, he spent most of 1941 at Princeton University
. After the start of World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project
at Columbia University
with Nobel laureate chemist Harold Urey
. Libby was responsible for the gaseous diffusion
separation and enrichment of the uranium-235
which was used in the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
.
In 1945 he became a professor at the University of Chicago
. In 1954, he was appointed to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. In 1959, he became Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles
, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. He taught honors freshman chemistry from 1959 to 1963 (in keeping with a University tradition that senior faculty teach this class). He was Director of the University of California
statewide Institute of Geophysics
and Planetary Physics (IGPP) for many years including the lunar landing time. In 1966 he married his second wife Leona Woods Marshall
, an original experimenter on the world's first nuclear reactor
and a UCLA professor of environmental engineering
. He also started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972.
In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
for leading the team (namely, post-doc James Arnold and graduate student Ernie Anderson, with a $5,000 grant) that developed carbon-14 dating
. He also discovered that tritium
could be used for dating water, and therefore wine.
He attended Analy High School
in Sebastopol, California
. The school library has a mural of Libby, and a nearby highway is named in his honor.
During his time in the New York City area, Libby was a resident of Leonia, New Jersey
.
Physical chemistry
Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems in terms of physical laws and concepts...
noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
, a process which revolutionized archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
.
Libby was born in Grand Valley, Colorado
Grand Valley (Colorado)
The Grand Valley is an extended populated valley, approximately 30 miles long and 5 miles wide, located along the Colorado River in Mesa County in western Colorado and Grand County, Utah in the United States. The valley contains the city of Grand Junction, as well as other smaller communities...
. He received his B.S. in 1931 and Ph.D. in 1933 in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, where he then became a lecturer and later assistant professor. Libby spent the 1930s building sensitive geiger counter
Geiger counter
A Geiger counter, also called a Geiger–Müller counter, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing radiation. They detect the emission of nuclear radiation: alpha particles, beta particles or gamma rays. A Geiger counter detects radiation by ionization produced in a low-pressure gas in a...
s to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. In 1941 he joined Berkeley's chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma
Alpha Chi Sigma
Alpha Chi Sigma is a professional fraternity specializing in the field of chemistry. It has both collegiate and professional chapters throughout the United States consisting of both men and women and numbering more than 63,400 members...
.
Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, he spent most of 1941 at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. After the start of World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
with Nobel laureate chemist Harold Urey
Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934...
. Libby was responsible for the gaseous diffusion
Gaseous diffusion
Gaseous diffusion is a technology used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride through semi-permeable membranes. This produces a slight separation between the molecules containing uranium-235 and uranium-238 . By use of a large cascade of many stages, high separations...
separation and enrichment of the uranium-235
Uranium-235
- References :* .* DOE Fundamentals handbook: Nuclear Physics and Reactor theory , .* A piece of U-235 the size of a grain of rice can produce energy equal to that contained in three tons of coal or fourteen barrels of oil. -External links:* * * one of the earliest articles on U-235 for the...
which was used in the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
.
In 1945 he became a professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. In 1954, he was appointed to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. In 1959, he became Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. He taught honors freshman chemistry from 1959 to 1963 (in keeping with a University tradition that senior faculty teach this class). He was Director of the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
statewide Institute of Geophysics
Geophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
and Planetary Physics (IGPP) for many years including the lunar landing time. In 1966 he married his second wife Leona Woods Marshall
Leona Woods
Leona Woods , later called Leona Woods Marshall and Leona Woods Marshall Libby, was an American physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and the first atomic bomb....
, an original experimenter on the world's first nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
and a UCLA professor of environmental engineering
Environmental engineering
Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the natural environment , to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites...
. He also started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972.
In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
for leading the team (namely, post-doc James Arnold and graduate student Ernie Anderson, with a $5,000 grant) that developed carbon-14 dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...
. He also discovered that tritium
Tritium
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. The nucleus of tritium contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of protium contains one proton and no neutrons...
could be used for dating water, and therefore wine.
He attended Analy High School
Analy High School
Analy High School is a public high school located in Sebastopol, California, U.S.A. in Sonoma County. Analy was established in 1908 and celebrated its centennial in May 2008...
in Sebastopol, California
Sebastopol, California
Sebastopol is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, approximately north of San Francisco. The population was 7,379 at the 2010 census, but its businesses also serve surrounding rural portions of Sonoma County, totaling about 50,000 people...
. The school library has a mural of Libby, and a nearby highway is named in his honor.
During his time in the New York City area, Libby was a resident of Leonia, New Jersey
Leonia, New Jersey
Leonia is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 8,937. It is located near the western approach to the George Washington Bridge....
.
Works
- Arnold, J.R. and W. F. Libby. "Radiocarbon from Pile Graphite; Chemical Methods for Its Concentrations", Argonne National LaboratoryArgonne National LaboratoryArgonne National Laboratory is the first science and engineering research national laboratory in the United States, receiving this designation on July 1, 1946. It is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest...
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy CommissionUnited States Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
), (October 10, 1946). - Libby, Willard F., Radiocarbon dating, 2d ed., University of Chicago Press, 1955.
- Libby, W. F. "Radioactive Fallout" United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy CommissionUnited States Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
), (May 29, 1958). - Libby, W. F. "Progress in the Use of Isotopes: The Atomic Triad - Reactors, Radioisotopes and Radiation", United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy CommissionUnited States Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
), (August 4, 1958). - Libby, W. F. "History of Radiocarbon Dating", Department of Chemistry and Institute of Geophysics, University of California-Los Angeles, International Atomic Energy AgencyInternational Atomic Energy AgencyThe International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
, (August 15, 1967). - Libby, W. F. "Vulcanism and Radiocarbon Dates", University of California-Los Angeles, National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, (October 1972). - Libby, W. F. "Radiocarbon Dating, Memories, and Hopes", Department of Chemistry and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California-Los Angeles, National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, (October 1972).
External links
- Annotated Bibliography for Willard Libby from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
- Picture, Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical InformationOffice of Scientific and Technical InformationThe Office of Scientific and Technical Information is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy...
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material... - The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1960
- Biography of Willard Libby
- UCLA Biography
- A digitized collection of documents related to Libby's contacts with Linus PaulingLinus PaulingLinus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...
Sources
- W.F.Libby: Radiocarbon dating. Chemistry in Britain, Dec. 1969; 5(12): 548-552.