June in Chemistry
Links in these month-by-month files are revised only yearly, when the events are posted on
This Week in the History of Chemistry
. Click
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to view principal sources.
June 1
Sadi Carnot
born 1796: investigated heat engines and laid foundations (
Carnot cycle
) for
Second Law of Thermodynamics
. Read his
Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat
William Standish Knowles
born 1917: chiral catalysis of hydrogenation reactions;
Nobel Prize
.
June 2
Edward Elgar
born 1857: composer and
amateur chemist
[Thanks to Leopold May for drawing this to my attention.]
Clair Patterson
born 1922: stable-isotope geochemistry;
age of the earth
;
lead
(Pb, element 82)
in the environment
Nils Gabriel Sefström
born 1787: rediscovered
vanadium
(V, element 23).
June 3
Werner Arber
born 1929:
restriction enzymes
;
Nobel Prize (medicine)
, 1978. Read an
interview of Arber
.
Otto Loewi
born 1873:
chemical transmission of nerve impulses
;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1936.
Robert Burns Woodward
synthesized
chlorophyll
, 1960.
June 4
Jean Antoine Chaptal
born 1756: introduced name "nitrogen";
viticulture
; dyeing; manufacture of
sulfuric acid
.
Robert Furchgott
born 1916: role of
nitric oxide signaling
in cardiovacular system;
Nobel Prize (medicine)
, 1998.
Jacob Volhard
born 1834: organic synthesis, including
creatine
, brominated organic acids, and
thiophene
compounds.
Heinrich Otto Wieland
born 1877: organic chemistry (including nitrogenous organic radicals) and biochemistry (including sterols and
bile acids
);
Nobel Prize
, 1927.
June 5
Johan Gadolin
born 1760: discovered
yttrium
(Y, element 39);
gadolinium
(Gd, 64) was named after gadolinite, which was named after him.
William Erastus Upjohn
born 1853:
inventor of dissolvable pill
; founder of
Upjohn Pill and Granule Company
(later the Upjohn Company, merged with Pharmacia in 1995 and purchased by
Pfizer
in 2002).
June 6
Benjamin Brodie
gave a lecture to the Chemical Society on the "
Chemical Calculus
", an attempt at a non-atomic theory of chemical composition, 1867.
Edwin Gerhard Krebs
born 1918:
protein phosphorylation
as biological regulatory mechanism;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1992.
Heinrich Rohrer
born 1933:
scanning tunneling microscope
;
Nobel Prize (Physics)
, 1986. (See
summary of 1981-1986 articles on scanning tunneling microscope
.)
Richard Smalley
born 1943:
fullerenes
(see
paper in
Nature
);
Nobel Prize
, 1996.
June 7
James Young Simpson
born 1811: obsterician and pioneer in
anesthesia
; first used
chloroform
; introduced use of ether in Britain.
Robert Sanderson Mulliken
born 1896:
molecular orbital
method of electronic structure;
Nobel Prize
, 1966.
June 8
Francis Harry Compton Crick
born 1916:
double-helix structure
of
DNA
;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1962. Link to an
interview
with him.
Jacques Dubochet
born 1942: cryo-electron microscopy of biomolecules;
Nobel Prize
, 2017
Edwin Mattison McMillan
and
Philip Abelson
announced discovery of neptunium (
Np, element 93
), 1940.
John Roberts
born 1918: physical organic chemistry (mechanisms, small-ring compounds, substituent effects on reactivity)
Kenneth Geddes Wilson
born 1936:
phase
changes;
renormalization group
;
Nobel Prize (physics)
, 1982.
June 9
Henry Hallett Dale
born 1875: isolation of
acetylcholine
and demonstration of its role as a
neurotransmitter
;
Nobel Prize (medicine)
, 1936.
Hermann von Fehling
born 1812:
Fehling's solution
as oxidizing agent and analytical reagent for aldehydes and sugars; composition of
paraldehyde
and
metaldehyde
; preparation of
phenyl cyanide
.
Sarah Ratner
born 1903:
nitrogen metabolism
and urea synthesis;
Garvan Medal
, 1961
June 10
Ferdinand Tiemann
born 1848:
Reimer-Tiemann reaction
;
Tiemann rearrangement
of amide oximes; synthesis of
vanillin
(the main component of
vanilla
extract) and of
ionone
s (odor of violets).
June 11
François Antoine Henri Descroizilles
born 1751:
titration (of bleach)
Carl von Linde
born 1842: equipment for the
liquefaction of air
.
June 12
Wallace Reed Brode
born 1900: chemical spectroscopy; president of
American Chemical Society
and the research organization
Sigma Xi
.
Lyman Creighton Craig
born 1906: separation of biomolecules; molar mass of
insulin
;
ergot alkaloids
and
lysergic acid
.
Philippe-Auguste Guye
born 1862: precise determination of atomic weights; electrochemical synthesis of
nitric acid
.
Fritz Albert Lipmann
born 1899: discovered
coenzyme A
and central role of
ATP
in metabolism;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1953.
Bert Sakmann
born 1942: single-ion channels in cells;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1991.
June 13
Lloyd Conover
born 1923: invented
tetracycline
(
US patent 2,699,054
).
Charles Goessmann
born 1827: analysis of
peanuts
; chemistry of
sorghum
and
sugar beets
; president of
American Chemical Society
.
James Clerk Maxwell
born 1831: electromagnetic theory (
Maxwell's equations
), thermodynamics (
Maxwell relations
), kinetic theory of gases (Maxwell
velocity distribution
). (Read Maxwell's words on "
Maxwell's demon
", a
review of the atomic-molecular theory
, and of the
kinetic theory of gases
.)
Paul Modrich
born 1946: DNA repair;
Nobel Prize
, 2015.
Henry Moseley
shipped out from England to Turkey in the Great War, 1915. The discoverer of
atomic numbers
was later killed at
Gallipoli
.
June 14
James Whyte Black
born 1924: principles of drug treatment;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1988.
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
born 1736:
law of electric force
(Coulomb's law); unit of electric charge (Coulomb). (Thanks to Lucio Gelmini for pointing out Coulomb's birthday.)
United States Environmental Protection Agency
issued an
order banning use of DichloroDiphenylTrichloroethane
(
DDT
, more precisely, 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(4-chlorophenyl)ethane) effective December 31, 1972.
Karl Landsteiner
born 1868: discovered
human blood groups
;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1930.
John Ulric Nef
born 1862: valence of carbon; chemistry of
isocyanides
,
nitromethane
s, and
fulminates
.
June 15
Alain Aspect
born 1947:
quantum entanglement
;
Nobel Prize (physics)
, 2022
Carl Auer von Welsbach
announced separation of didymium into
neodymium
(Nd, element 60) and
praseodymium
(Pr, 59), 1885.
John Fenn
born 1917: mass spectroscopy of biological molecules;
Nobel Prize
, 2002
Antoine de Fourcroy
born 1755: collaborated with
Antoine Lavoisier
and
Claude Berthollet
in some of their research and
Méthode de nomenclature chimique
.
Charles Goodyear
patented
vulcanization process for rubber
, 1844 (
US patent 3,633
).
Samuel Colville Lind
born 1879: radioactivity and photochemistry; invented
electroscope for radium measurements
(Lind electroscope); proposed ionization theory of the chemical effects of
radium
rays.
June 16
Henry Enfield Roscoe
announced isolation of
vanadium
metal, 1869.
Georg Wittig
born 1897: organophosphorus chemistry (e.g.
Wittig olefination
) and
Wittig rearrangement
;
Nobel Prize
, 1979.
June 17
William Crookes
born 1832: discovered
thallium
(Tl, element 81); invented
radiometer
; separation of
rare earths
; spectroscopy; founder and editor of
Chemical News
; cathode ray studies (
Crookes tube
).
Hiram Stevens Maxim
received
US patent
number
430,212
for smokeless gunpowder, 1890.
John Henry Pepper
born 1821: science educator, popularizer, and showman; inventor of "
Pepper's ghost
," a stage special effect. [Thanks to Bill Palmer at Charles Darwin University for drawing my attention to Pepper.]
William Perkin, Jr.
born 1860: synthesis of
terpenes
and alkaloids; son of
William Henry Perkin
.
Byron Riegel born 1906:
oral contraceptives
; president of the
American Chemical Society
.
Howard Ensign Simmons, Jr.
born 1929: organic synthesis and industrial research management at
DuPont
.
June 18
Charles Baskerville
born 1870: processes for refining and hydrogenating oils;
plastics
; reinforced lead;
anesthetics
.
Dudley Herschbach
born 1932:
molecular beam studies of reaction dynamics
;
Nobel Prize
, 1986.
Edward David Hughes
born 1906: physical organic chemistry.
Jerome Karle
born 1918:
X-ray crystallography
;
Nobel Prize
, 1985.
Emil Knoevenagel
born 1865: organic synthesis;
Knoevenagel condensation
.
June 19
Ernst Boris Chain
1906: extraction and purification of
penicillin
;
Nobel Prize (medicine)
, 1945.
Paul Flory
born 1910: physical chemistry of
macromolecules
;
Nobel Prize
, 1974.
Rebeca Gerschman
born 1903: free radicals in oxygen toxicity
Cyril Norman Hinshelwood
born 1897:
chemical kinetics
;
Nobel Prize
, 1956.
Friedrich Wilhelm Sertürner
born 1783: discovered
morphine
(extracted it from opium).
June 20
Mary Lowe Good
born 1931: inorganic and industrial chemistry; science policy; president of
American Chemical Society
.
W. R. Grace
incorporated, 1899.
Lloyd Augustus Hall
born 1894: food chemistry, particularly
preservation of meats, fats, and oils
.
Frederick Gowland Hopkins
born 1861: nutritional chemistry;
vitamins
; essential
amino acids
;
Nobel Prize (Medicine)
, 1929.
L. B. Magnusson and T. J. LaChapelle isolated first microscopic amount
of a
neptunium
(Np, element 93) compound at wartime Metallurgical Laboratory,
University of Chicago
, 1944.
June 21
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
and
Louis Thénard
announced the isolation of
boron
(B, element 5), 1808.
Clara Immerwahr Haber
born 1870: electro-affinity (now known as electronegativity); left chemistry research after marrying
Fritz Haber
; suicide, 1915
Charles Thomas Jackson
born 1805: analytical chemist and geologist; ether as an
anaesthetic
(
controversy with his student, William Morton
).
Joyce Jacobson Kaufman
born 1929: quantum chemical and other physicochemical techniques applied to pharmacological and toxicological problems
Giuliana Tesoro
born 1921: chemical modification of polymers, particularly with applications to textiles
June 22
Harry Julius Emeléus
born 1903: inorganic chemistry, fluorine chemistry.
Nathaniel Howell Furman
born 1892: analytical separation of
uranium
.
The first definitive standards for the
meter
and
kilogram
(the
first standards in the system that would develop into the international system (SI)
of units) were deposited in the National Archives of France, 1799.
Ada Yonath
born 1940:
ribosome
;
Nobel Prize, 2009.
June 23
Etienne-Louis Malus
born 1775: double refraction (
birefringence
).
June 24
Eleuthère du Pont
born 1771: gunpowder manufacturer; founded
DuPont
, 1802
Fred Hoyle
born 1915:
stellar nucleosynthesis of chemical elements
; coined term "
big bang
" (
derisively
)
Frederick George Keyes
born 1885: thermodynamic properties of matter; kinetic theory; application of thermodynamics to equilibria.
William Moerner
born 1953: very high-resolution fluorescence microscopy;
Nobel Prize
, 2014.
Johannes Wislicenus
born 1835: proposed idea of
geometric isomers
;
acetoacetic ester synthesis
.
June 25
Herbert Brereton Baker
born 1862: effect of water on chemical change; desiccating and
poison gases
.
Marie Curie (née Manya Sklodowska)
presented
doctoral thesis
to Paris faculty of science, 1903. The thesis summarized the work for which she would share the
Nobel prize
that same year. (See
English translation of dissertation
.)
Walther Hermann Nernst
born 1864:
third law of thermodynamics
; electrochemistry (
Nernst equation
);
Nobel Prize
, 1920.
William Howard Stein
born 1911: enzyme chemistry;
Nobel Prize
, 1972.
June 26
Henri Moissan
electrolyzed a solution of
KHF
2
in anhydrous
HF
to
isolate fluorine
(
F, element 9
), 1886.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald
converted
ammonia
to
nitric acid
with a platinum catalyst, 1907.
Roy Plunkett
born 1910: invention and characterization of
polytetrafluoroethylene
, better known as
Teflon®
(
US patent 2,230,654
)
James Smithson
died
1829 (birth date unknown c.1765): analysis of zinc ores; his bequest started the
Smithsonian Institution
.
William Thomson (Baron Kelvin of Largs)
born 1824: theory and practice of thermodynamics, including a
formulation of the second law
;
absolute temperature (Kelvin) scale
.
June 27
Arthur Clay Cope
born 1909: ring compounds; synthetic organic chemistry (
Cope rearrangement
)
Abraham Gesner
obtained US patents
11,203
,
11,204
, and
11,205
on a process for obtaining
kerosene
by distillation, 1854.
June 28
William Campbell
born 1930: isolation of
avermectin
, which led to
ivermectin
, a successful treatment for river blindness;
Nobel Prize (medicine)
, 2015.
Emil Richard Erlenmeyer
born 1825: conical flask (
Erlenmeyer flask
); organic synthesis (including
tyrosine
and
guanidine
).
Jenny Pickworth Glusker
born 1931: crystallography;
structural studies of carcinogenisis and mutagenisis
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
born 1906: nucleus shell structure;
Nobel Prize (physics)
, 1963.
Jane Haldimand Marcet
died
1858 (birth date unknown in 1769): wrote
Conversations on Chemistry
(popular chemistry text). Link to the
text of the book
or an
article about it
.
Mario Molina
and
Sherwood Rowland
paper proposing that
chlorofluorocarbons deplete stratospheric ozone
was published, 1974.
F. Sherwood Rowland
born 1927: atmospheric chemistry, particularly of
ozone layer
;
Nobel Prize
, 1995.
June 29
Peter Waage
born 1833: formulated
law of mass action
(with brother-in-law
Cato Guldberg
)
June 30
John Townsend Baker
born 1860: founded
J. T. Baker chemical company
, 1904.
Paul Berg
born 1926:
recombinant DNA
;
Nobel Prize
, 1980.
Joseph Caventou
born 1795: worked with
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier
; isolated
strychnine
,
chlorophyll
,
quinine
, and
caffeine
Humphry Davy
announced the isolation of
barium
(Ba, element 56),
calcium
(Ca, 20), "magnium" (
magnesium
, Mg, 12), and
strontium
(Sr, 38) to the Royal Society, 1808. He also announced the isolation of
boron
(B, element 5), nine days after
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
and
Louis Thénard
made a similar announcement in France. (Read
Davy's paper
.)
William Higgins
died
1825 (uncertain; birth date unknown in 1762 or 1763):
atomic notions of chemical combination
; advocate of antiphlogistic theory of combustion.
Pure Food and Drug Act
signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, 1906.
Valence bond paper on H
2
by
Walter Heitler
and
Fritz London
received at
Zeitschrift für Physik
, 1927.
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