John Gamble Kirkwood
John Gamble Kirkwood called, Jack, (* May 30, 1907 in Gotebo, Oklahoma; † August 9, 1959 in New Haven ( Connecticut ) ) was an American physicist and chemist who dealt with statistical mechanics.
Life
He grew up in Kansas, Wichita. Because of his talent, he attended the end of 1923 before his high school graduation Caltech ( on the recommendation of chemistry professor Arthur A. Noyes ) and made in 1926 at the University of Chicago a bachelor's degree in physics. In 1929 he was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Frederick Keyes ( 1885-1976 ) received his doctorate in chemistry. In his dissertation he measured the static dielectric constants of carbon dioxide and ammonia as a function of temperature and density. After that, he was 1931/32 two years in Europe, including Peter Debye in Leipzig and Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich. He then worked again at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry at MIT and from 1934 Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University. In 1937 he was associate professor at the University of Chicago, and in 1938 Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University.
During World War II he worked on the physics of explosions and shock waves in the Ministry of Defence, where he worked with his colleagues from Cornell University Hans Bethe, with whom he had already published a paper on statistical mechanics. For this he received the Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1945 the U.S. Navy and in 1947 a Presidential Certificate of Appreciation.
In 1947 he went to Caltech, where Noyes was a professor of chemistry. From 1951 he was Stirling Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, where he stayed as a result of cancer in 1959 until his untimely death. At Yale University, he was Director of Science and head of its faculty. Most recently, he was a Visiting Professor 1959 Lorentz at Leiden University and visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He died of cancer.
Kirkwood dealt among other things with the theory of electrolytic solutions ( Debye- Hückel theory and its basis in statistical mechanics ) and mixtures of liquids with protein electrophoresis ( with development of a new method 1941), behavior of polymers, theory of chemical fusion and crystallization ( with Elizabeth Monroe).
He is known for the Kirkwood approximation in statistical mechanics of liquids (1942 ), which he approached about the distribution function of the molecules. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was also involved in the development of statistical mechanics of irreversible processes, which was then removed from his doctoral Robert twenties, Hajime Mori, Ryogo Kubo and others. In particular, he was the first to put a transport coefficients via an autocorrelation function.
With Frank P. Buff (1924-2009) he developed the Kirkwood - Buff theory, a theory of statistical mechanics of solutions and of surface tension. By J. Riseman, he developed a theory of motion of macromolecules in solution.
He received the 1936 Irving Langmuir Award. Kirkwood was an honorary doctorate from the University of Chicago ( 1954) and the Free University of Brussels ( 1959). In 1942 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Foreign Secretary ( ie, its foreign minister to speak ) he was from 1954 to 1958. In this context, he also strove for cooperation with the Soviet Union in the International Geophysical Year in 1957/58.
1962 founded the American Chemical Society ( section New Haven ) and the Faculty of Chemistry, Yale University John G. Kirkwood Award, the first prize winner was Lars Onsager.