Wendell Mitchell Latimer (April 22, 1893 – July 6, 1955) was an American

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

notable for his description of

oxidation states In chemistry, the oxidation state, or oxidation number, is the hypothetical charge of an atom if all of its bonds to different atoms were fully ionic. It describes the degree of oxidation (loss of electrons) of an atom in a chemical compound. C ...

in his book "The Oxidation States of the Elements and Their Potentials in Aqueous Solution" ( ASIN B000GRXLSA, first published 1938). He received his Ph.D from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

for the work with George Ernest Gibson. He earned many awards and honors for his scientific work.

Awards and honors

Latimer received many awards and honor during his lifetime including membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and chairmanship of its Section of Chemistry from 1947 to 1950; the Distinguished Service Award from his alma mater, the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...

, in 1948; the

President's Certificate of Merit The President's Certificate of Merit was created June 6, 1946 by Executive Order 9734 signed by US President Harry Truman, "for award by the President or at his direction to any civilian who on or after December 7, 1941'' (see Attack on Pearl Harbor ...

, in 1948; Faculty Research Lecture in 1953, an honor that the Academic Senate of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

annually bestows upon one of its members; the William H. Nichols Medal from the New York Section of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, in 1955 with a citation for his "Pioneer Studies on the

Thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of th ...

of Electrolytes, especially the Entropies of Ions in Aqueous Solutions."

Discovery of tritium

In 1933 Latimer used the recently discovered Allison effect to discover

tritium Tritium ( or , ) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life about 12 years. The nucleus of tritium (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of ...

. Gilbert N. Lewis bet against his discovery, and he had to pay when Latimer showed him his data. However, that same year the Allison effect was discredited in the eyes of the scientific community, and the discovery of tritium was credited to

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...

in 1934. Latimer explained years later he had been unable to reproduce his results, and he couldn't even find where he had gone wrong. The events were cited by Irving Langmuir in his 1953 speech about

pathological science Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."Irving Langmuir, "Colloquium on Pathological Science," held at the Knolls Research Lab ...

Publications

"The Oxidation States of the Elements and Their Potentials in Aqueous Solution" ASIN B000GRXLSA published 1938.

References

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Wendell Mitchell Latimer
1893 births 1955 deaths 20th-century American chemists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences {{US-chemist-stub