William N. Lipscomb Jr.
From Philosopedia
William N. Lipscomb Jr. (9 December 1919 - 14 April 2011)
Lipscomb was a Nobel Prize-winning American inorganic and organic chemist working in nuclear magnetic resonance, theoretical chemistyr, boron chemisty, and biochemistry.
He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but his family moved to Lexington, Kentucky, when he was an infant. Until he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry at the University of Kentucky in 1941, he stayed in Lexington until moving to Pasadena, California, where in 1946 he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology.
From 1946 to 1959 he taught at the University of Minnesota. From 1959 to 1990 he was a professor of chemistry at Harvard University, where since 1990 he was a professor emeritus.
Lipscomb resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts, up until his death in 2011 at the age of 91 from pneumonia.
Following is the autobiography he wrote upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistyr in 1976:
- Although born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, on December 9, 1919, I moved to Kentucky in 1920, and lived in Lexington through my university years. After my bachelors degree at the University of Kentucky, I entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology in 1941, at first in physics. Under the influence of Linus Pauling, I returned to chemistry in early 1942. From then until the end of 1945 I was involved in research and development related to the war. After completion of the Ph.D., I joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1946, and moved to Harvard University in 1959. Harvard's recognitions include the Abbott and James Lawrence Professorship in 1971, and the George Ledlie Prize in 1971.
- The early research in borane chemistry is best summarized in my book "Boron Hydrides" (W.A. Benjamin, Inc., 1963), although most of this and late work is in several scientific journals. Since about 1960, my research interests have also been concerned with the relationship between three-dimensional structures of enzymes and how they catalyze reactions or how they are regulated by allosteric transformations.
- Besides memberships in various scientific societies, I have received the Bausch and Lomb honorary science award in 1937; and, from the American Chemical Society, the Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry, and the Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry. Local sections of this Society have given the Harrison Howe Award and Remsen Award. The University of Kentucky presented to me the Sullivan Medallion in 1941, the Distinguished Alumni Centennial Award in 1965, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1963. A Doctor Honoris Causa was awarded by the University of Munich in 1976. I am a member of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Letters.
- My other activities include tennis and classical chamber music as a performing clarinetist.
See a YouTube video in which Dr. Lipscomb demonstrates how to tie a [string tie].
{From Les Prix Nobel en 1976, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1977]
