Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey ( born April 29, 1893 in Walkerton, Indiana, USA, † January 5, 1981 in La Jolla, California ) was an American chemist.
Life and work
Harold C. Urey studied zoology at the University of Montana (Bachelor 1917) and his PhD in 1923 in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. 1918/19, he was at the Barrett Chemical Company, 1919-1921 Instructor of Chemistry at the University of Montana and 1923/24, at the University of Copenhagen. 1924 to 1929 he was an associate in chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. He was from 1929 Associate Professor at Columbia University in New York, where in 1934 Professor, was from 1945 to 1958 at the University of Chicago and later at the University of California at San Diego. From 1970 he was a professor emeritus.
In 1934 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry " for his discovery of heavy hydrogen ", the deuterium of 1931.
To Ureys main areas of work included not only the separation of isotopes, the atomic spectra and the spectra and structures of molecules. He is the inventor of Δ18O. These isotopes investigation allows temperature reconstructions of million year old fossils. The method is still used today in the field of climatology as a proxy.
During the Second World War he worked with his team on several research projects within the Manhattan Project and contributed in this way to the development of the first atomic bomb at. Most important was the development of the gas diffusion method for the separation of 235U and 238U.
Ureys interest was especially the early stage of the planets and the primordial atmosphere. He also worked in the field of origin of life. His insights as he took in the 1952 book The Planets: Their Origin and Development together.
The well-known as the Miller experiment attempt is sometimes called Miller - Urey experiment (see Chemical Evolution ).
In addition to the Nobel Prize he was awarded the 1966 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. A moon crater and an asteroid named after him. The American Astronomical Society will award an award that after HC Is named Urey.
Since 1935 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1964 he received the National Medal of Science.
The Urey Award is named after him.