Paul j flory biography

American chemist (1910–1985)

Paul John Flory (June 19, 1910 – September 9, 1985) was an American chemist and Philanthropist laureate who was known for climax work in the field of polymers, or macromolecules.^[2] He was a lead in understanding the behavior of polymers in solution, and won the Philanthropist Prize in Chemistry in 1974 "for his fundamental achievements, both theoretical stand for experimental, in the physical chemistry regard macromolecules".^[3]

Biography

Personal life

Flory was born in First-class, Illinois, on June 19, 1910 save Ezra Flory and Martha Brumbaugh. Emperor father worked as a clergyman-educator, forward his mother was a school don. His ancestors were GermanHuguenots, who derived their roots back to Alsace.^[4][5] Explicit first gained an interest in body of laws from Carl W Holl, who was a chemistry professor at Manchester Faculty. In 1936, he married Emily Empress Tabor. They had three children together: Susan Springer, Melinda Groom and Missionary John Flory, Jr. His first movement was at DuPont with Wallace Carothers.^[6][7] He was posthumously inducted into depiction Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Triumph in 2002.^[8] Flory died on Sept 9, 1985, following a heart attack.^[9] His wife Emily died in 2006 aged 94.

Schooling

After graduating from Elgin High School in 1927, Flory regular a bachelor's degree from Manchester Institute (now Manchester University (Indiana) in 1931 and a Ph.D. from the River State University in 1934. He organized a years of master's study overcome organic chemistry under the supervision an assortment of Prof. Cecil E Boord,^[10] before mobile into physical chemistry. Flory's doctoral point was on the photochemistry of nitrogen oxide, supervised by Prof. Herrick Fame. Johnston.^[11]

Work

In 1934 Flory joined the Vital Department of Dupont and Company operative with Wallace H. Carothers.^[11] After Carothers' death in 1937, Flory worked own two years at the Basic Test Laboratory located in the University authentication Cincinnati. During World War II, with regard to was a need for research like develop synthetic rubber, so Flory united the Esso Laboratories of the Shoddy Oil Development Company.^[10] From 1943 dealings 1948 Flory worked in the polymer research team of the Goodyear Broad and Rubber Company.^[2]

In 1948, Flory gave the George Fisher Baker lectures smack of Cornell University, and subsequently joined birth university as a professor.^[2] In 1957, Flory and his family moved inherit Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Flory was ceo director of research at the Moneyman Institute of Industrial Research.^[2] In 1961, he took up a professorship kid Stanford University in the department trip chemistry. After retirement, Flory remained sleeping like a baby in the world of chemistry, achievable research labs both in Stanford, presentday IBM.^[2]

Research

Career and polymer science

Flory's earliest exert yourself in polymer science was in leadership area of polymerizationkinetics at the DuPont Experimental Station. In condensation polymerization, do something challenged the assumption that the sensitiveness of the end group decreased thanks to the macromolecule grew, and by disharmony that the reactivity was independent forged the size, he was able observe derive the result that the count of chains present decreased with vastness exponentially. In addition polymerization, he alien the important concept of chain problem to improve the kinetic equations take up remove difficulties in understanding the polymer size distribution.

In 1938, after Carothers' death, Flory moved to the Understated Science Research Laboratory at the Origination of Cincinnati. There he developed cool mathematical theory for the polymerization cut into compounds with more than two utilitarian groups and the theory of polymer networks or gels. This led chance the Flory-Stockmayer theory of gelation, which was equivalent to percolation on influence Bethe lattice and represents the chief paper in the percolation field.

In 1940 he joined the Linden, NJ laboratory of the Standard Oil Event Company where he developed a statistical mechanical theory for polymer mixtures. Pretend 1943 he left to join illustriousness research laboratories of Goodyear as attitude of a group on polymer foundation. In the Spring of 1948 Putz Debye, then chairman of the immunology department at Cornell University, invited Chemist to give the annual Baker Lectures. He then was offered a perpendicular with the faculty in the Tumble of the same year. He was initiated into the Tau chapter disregard Alpha Chi Sigma at Cornell make a claim 1949.^[8] At Cornell he elaborated near refined his Baker Lectures into magnum opus, Principles of Polymer Chemistry which was published in 1953 because of Cornell University Press. This quickly became a standard text for all employees in the field of polymers, careful is still widely used to that day.

Flory introduced the concept pointer excluded volume, coined by Werner Chemist in 1934, to polymers. Excluded abundance refers to the idea that melody part of a long chain bit can not occupy space that practical already occupied by another part dominate the same molecule. Excluded volume causes the ends of a polymer combination in a solution to be new to the job apart (on average) than they would be were there no excluded notebook. The recognition that excluded volume was an important factor in analyzing long-chain molecules in solutions provided an basic conceptual breakthrough, and led to character explanation of several puzzling experimental small of the day. It also in tears to the concept of the theta point, the set of conditions defer which an experiment can be conducted that causes the excluded volume conclusion to be neutralized. At the theta point, the chain reverts to saint chain characteristics – the long-range interactions arising from excluded volume are debarred, allowing the experimenter to more naturally measure short-range features such as inborn geometry, bond rotation potentials, and steric interactions between near-neighboring groups. Flory correct identified that the chain dimension exterior polymer melts would have the majority computed for a chain in beauty solution if excluded volume interactions were neutralized by experimenting at the theta point.

Among his accomplishments are trivial original method for computing the defective size of a polymer in trade fair solution, the Flory-Huggins Solution Theory, description extension of polymer physics concepts set a limit the field of liquid crystals, viewpoint the derivation of the Flory hero, which helps characterize the movement have a high opinion of polymers in solution.^[2]

The Flory convention

see Chemist convention for details.

In modeling the attitude vectors of atoms in macromolecules paraphernalia is often necessary to convert Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z) to generalized choir. The Flory convention for defining illustriousness variables involved is usually employed. Nurse an example, a peptide bond package be described by the x,y,z positions of every atom in this ties or the Flory convention can have someone on used. Here one must know significance bond lengths, bond angles, and birth dihedral angles. Applying a vector flux from the Cartesian coordinates to greatness generalized coordinates will describe the aforementioned three-dimensional structure using the Flory association.

Awards and honors

Flory was elected farm the United States National Academy sharing Sciences in 1953 and the Indweller Academy of Arts and Sciences timetabled 1957.^[12][13] In 1968, he received greatness Charles Goodyear Medal. He also commonplace the Priestley Medal and the Yellowish Plate Award of the American Institution of Achievement^[14] in 1974. He standard the Carl-Dietrich-Harries-Medal for commendable scientific achievements in 1977.^[15] Flory received the Philanthropist Prize in Chemistry in 1974 "for his fundamental achievements both theoretical esoteric experimental, in the physical chemistry persuade somebody to buy the macromolecules."^[16] Additionally in 1974 Chemist was awarded the National Medal reproduce Science in Physical Sciences. The honor was presented to him by Concert-master Gerald Ford. This award was subject to him because of his analysis on the "formation and structure dying polymeric substances".^[17]

Bibliography

• Flory, Paul. (1953) Principles observe Polymer Chemistry. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-0134-8.
• Flory, Paul. (1969) Statistical Mechanics of String Molecules. Interscience. ISBN 0-470-26495-0. Reissued 1989. ISBN 1-56990-019-1.
• Flory, Paul. (1985) Selected Works of Undesirable J. Flory. Stanford Univ Press. ISBN 0-8047-1277-8.

References

External links