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Irving LengmiurPhysicist and physical chemist
Date of Birth: 31.01.1881
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir was an American chemist and physicist, and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932. He was born on January 31, 1881, in Brooklyn, New York. He received his education from several different schools and institutes, including a period of study in Paris from 1892 to 1895. In 1903, he graduated from Columbia School of Mines as a metallurgical engineer, and then went to the University of Göttingen to pursue his doctoral research under the guidance of Nernst, which he successfully completed in 1906.
Upon returning to America, Langmuir taught chemistry at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey until July 1909. In the same year, he began his research on electrical discharges in gases and thermionic emission as a member of General Electric's Research Laboratory. The results he obtained were later applied in the construction of gas-filled incandescent lamps and electron tubes used in radio technology.
In 1913, Irving Langmuir proposed a formula for the density of emission current. He also studied the thermal ionization of gases and vapors in contact with metallic surfaces in 1924. In 1911, Langmuir obtained atomic hydrogen and developed the process of metal welding using its flame. In 1916, he constructed the first condensation water-vacuum pump. From 1909 to 1916, while studying gas adsorption on solid surfaces, he discovered the existence of the adsorption limit and proposed the adsorption isotherm equation, now known as the Langmuir isotherm. He also researched the structure of monomolecular adsorption layers and worked on theoretical aspects of colloidal systems.
In 1932, Langmuir was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries in the field of surface phenomena. He was a foreign member of the Royal Society of London and the president of the American Chemical Society. Irving Langmuir was married to Marion Mersereau in 1912, and they had two children, a son named Kenneth and a daughter named Barbara.
