Irving Langmuir
Nobel-winning chemist and physicist who pioneered surface chemistry, plasma physics, and the gas-filled incandescent lamp.
For his investigations into surface chemistry, the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to him.[1][2] A heart attack caused Langmuir's death on August 16, 1957, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.[3]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 31 January 1881
- Birthplace
- Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
- Died
- 16 August 1957
- Place of death
- Woods Hole, Massachusetts, U.S.
- Workplaces
- Stevens Institute of Technology; General Electric
- Education
- Columbia University; University of Göttingen
- Thesis year
- 1909
- Doctoral advisor
- Friedrich Dolezalek
- de
- Friedrich Dolezalek (Chemiker)
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
He worked at the General Electric Research Laboratory from 1909 until his retirement in 1950.[2] With colleague Lewi Tonks, he discovered that filling a bulb with inert gas lengthened the life of a tungsten filament.[4] The diffusion pump was significantly enhanced by Langmuir, an early major achievement that made high-vacuum rectifier and amplifier tubes possible.[4] Greater efficiency in the filament was achieved when Langmuir discovered that coiling it tightly was beneficial.[4]
Plasmas were a subject of early investigation for Langmuir, who gave them their name due to a resemblance he saw to blood plasma.[5] Marion Mersereau became Langmuir's wife in 1912; the couple later adopted Kenneth and Barbara.[3]
What the cited sources add
The IEEE Global History Network notes that Langmuir helped modernize vacuum tube engineering and was considered a pioneer in electronics.[2] His engineering skills were utilized by the military during World War II.[2] Langmuir was involved in controversial experiments with cloud seeding.[2] Katharine Burr Blodgett, the first woman scientist hired by General Electric, assisted him in much of his work.[2]
Kurt Vonnegut has stated that the fictional scientist Dr. Felix Hoenikker from the book Cat's Cradle was based on Langmuir.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Irving Langmuir" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Langmuir, "The Constitution and Fundamental Properties of Solids and Liquids: II. Liquids", Journal of the American Chemical Society, September 1917, p. 1848–1906 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Irving Langmuir", IEEE Global History Network. facts only, no text reused. ieeeghn.org
- Wikipedia, "Irving Langmuir" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Staff writers, "Dr. Irving Langmuir Dies at 76; Winner of Nobel Chemistry Prize", The New York Times, August 17, 1957 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Irving Langmuir" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Irving Langmuir" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mott-Smith, "History of "plasmas"", Nature, 1971, p. 219; Tonks, "The birth of "plasma"", American Journal of Physics, 1967, p. 857–858; Brown, Sanborn C., "Gaseous Electronics", Academic Press, 1978; Tonks, "Oscillations in ionized gases", Physical Review, 1929, p. 195–210 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Irving Langmuir" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Musil, "There Must Be More to Love Than Death: A Conversation With Kurt Vonnegut", The Nation, August 2, 1980, p. 128–132 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Irving Langmuir (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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