Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir [ læŋmjʊə ] ( born January 31, 1881 in Brooklyn, New York; † August 16, 1957 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts ) was an American chemist and physicist. In 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Life and work

After his degree (Bachelor of Science, BS) at Columbia University in the Department of Mining 1903, he worked at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the later Nobel laureate Walther Nernst in Göttingen and obtained in 1906 a Doctor of Science.

Then Langmuir taught until 1909 at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, then in a General Electric research laboratory ( Schenectady, New York). During his time there, he advanced several theories in physics and chemistry, the condensation of mercury vacuum pump, the gas-filled tungsten filament lamp, numerous vacuum radio tubes and a method developed for welding with atomic hydrogen ( Arcatom-Schweißen/Langmuir-Fackel ). 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded him Surface Chemistry for his work in the field.

His first scientific contributions came from the continuation of his PhD thesis, which dealt with incandescent lamps. By improving the vacuum technique, he was able to develop high vacuum bulb, a year later, he discovered that the life of a tungsten filament could be extended by filling the bulb with an inert gas such as argon. Further investigations into filaments in vacuum and different gas conditions led him to the study of charged particles from hot filaments ( thermionic emission).

Langmuir was one of the first scientists who worked with plasma and he was the first who gave this name to these ionized gases. He developed the concept of the electron temperature and invented in 1924 to measure a method around this temperature, which is named after him Langmuir probe measurement.

After the First World War Langmuir contributed by the concept of valence and isotopes also contribute to the atomic theory and education of atomic structure.

Along with Katherine Blodgett he worked on thin films and surface adsorption. Developed the concept both of the monolayer and the two-dimensional physics describing such a surface. In 1932 he was awarded for his " discoveries and studies on the surface chemistry," the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The unit of dose in the surface chemistry Langmuir was named after him.

In 1938 he examined the first the phenomenon of later named after him Langmuir circulation. In 1953 he led in a lecture the concept Pathological science.

In the 1940s he studied at General Electric with Vincent Schaeffer artificial weather modification by seeding clouds with dry ice (later Bernard Vonnegut struck with General Electric to silver iodide before ). In honor of Langmuir's a magazine for physico- chemical aspects of colloid and interface science was named after him. He awarded in honor of the American Physical Society and the American Chemical Society, the Irving Langmuir Award in Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics.

He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the Faraday Medal ( IEE), the Franklin Medal, the Perkin Medal of the Society for Chemical Industry and John J. Carty Award from the National Academy.

417646
de