Irving Langmuir Research Articles

Irving Langmuir Award presented to Drickamer

Irving Langmuir Award presented to Drickamer

Irving Langmuir and the "Octet" Theory of Valence

Irving Langmuir and the "Octet" Theory of Valence

Twenty years of physics: Plasmas

TWENTY YEARS AGO the study of plasmas occupied a relatively minor role in physics: The wide variety of plasma phenomena remained unexplored. The field had its origin early in this century in the study of the gas discharge, a relatively dense, slightly ionized plasma regime where the dominant effects are ionization, excitation, recombination and other atomic collision processes. Irving Langmuir initiated modern plasma physics through his discovery of plasma electrostatic oscillations and his realization that this was an aspect of collective particle motion. It is these collective motions which, generating and interacting with electric and magnetic fields, are responsible for the wealth of physical phenomena that take place in a plasma and make it so different from ordinary fluids.

John C. Slater Receives 1967 Irving Langmuir Prize

John C. Slater Receives 1967 Irving Langmuir Prize

Atmospheric Pressure Wave from an Explosion

PRESSURE waves were obtained from one of two explosions set off at White Sands Missile Range (33° 27′ 1ST., 106° 34′ W.; elevation 4,900 ft. above mean sea-level), New Mexico. The first explosion occurred at 1100 p.m. M.S.T., October 28, 1965, and the second at 1100 a.m. M.S.T., November 2, 1965. These explosions were identical shots of 10 tons of TNT. Pressure waves from the first explosion were recorded at the Socorro Campus of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (34° 4′ N., 106° 54′ W.; elevation 4,617 ft. above mean sea-level) and at the Institute's Irving Langmuir Mountain Laboratory (33° 59′ N., 107° 11′ W.; elevation 10,630 ft. above mean sea-level). No pressure waves were recorded from the second event.

Langmuir prize

The American Physical Society and the American Chemical Society, with the sponsorship of the General Electric Foundation, have joined in establishing a new $5000 prize, to be called the Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics. The two societies will alternate each year in selecting a scientist, residing in the US, who has made an outstanding contribution to chemical physics or physical chemistry within the ten preceding years.

Atmospheric physics

The Irving Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, established last year by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, is currently engaged in a variety of research programs relating to cloud physics and thunderstorm phenomena. During the International Quiet Sun Years of 1964 and 1965, the Laboratory is cooperating with the Joint Committee on Atmospheric and Space Electricity of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics by making data available for use in an international effort to correlate the basic parameters of atmospheric electricity on a world‐wide scale.

The Collected Works of Irving Langmuir

not Available.

On the molecular flow with langmuirian adsorption of the molecules on the wall of the tube; A correction

In par. 19 of his thesis, which is only a theoretical paragraph, the author treated a stationary molecular flow with Langmuirian adsorption of the molecules on the wall of the tube. The late Dr. Irving Langmuir could not accept the results. Afterwards it turned out that a wrong diffusion coefficient had been used. This interesting mistake is analyzed and the results are corrected.

The Collected Works of Irving Langmuir

Volume 7—Protein Structures Volume 8—Properties of Matter Volume 9—Surface Phenomena By (General Editor) GUY SUITS Oxford: Pergamon Press Ltd. Volume 7—Pp. xlii + 227 Volume 8—Pp. xxix + 251 Volume 9—Pp. xxi + 521 Price 100s. per volume

Irving Langmuir, 1881-1957

In the winter of 1942, as retiring President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Irving Langmuir addressed the membership on the topic ‘Science, commonsense and decency’. He was concerned with the interaction of scientific progress and human endeavour and took the opportunity to reveal his own ideas concerning problems of human behaviour and morality. He recognized two categories of phenomena in modern physics which he termed convergent and divergent phenomena. He included among the convergent phenomena all those fluctuating details of individual atoms and molecules which average out giving a result that converges to a definite state. Many of the phenomena of classical physics belong in the convergent category. To a second class he assigned the divergent phenomena where, from a small beginning, increasingly large effects are produced. Quantum physics includes many such phenomena. Langmuir chose as an illustrative example the Wilson cloud-chamber experiment. Here, a single swift particle, say an alpha particle, whose release from its parent is unpredictable as to time and direction, subject only to the laws of chance, in its passage through the chamber leaves a trail of ions. If the chamber atmosphere be super-saturated, droplets are formed; illumination renders these visible and photography can record the multiple divergent consequences from a single event, the release of the swift particle. In further development of this theme of divergence Langmuir went on to state that ‘when we consider the nature of human affairs it is to me obvious that divergent phenomena frequently play a role of vital importance’. Langmuir’s birth on 31 January 1881 comes within the category of his divergent phenomena, from which beginning profound effects on the development of physico-chemical science finally resulted.

Irving Langmuir, Man of Many Interests

Irving Langmuir, Man of Many Interests

Dr. Irving Langmuir's Contributions to Physics

Dr. Irving Langmuir's Contributions to Physics

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir, internationally-known chemist, physicist, and Nobel Prize winner, died on August 16 after suffering a coronary thrombosis two days earlier while vacationing at Falmouth, Mass. His age was 76.

Bakerian Lecture: On reactions in monolayers

It was shown both by Benjamin Franklin and by Lord Rayleigh that if a drop of oleic acid be placed upon an extended surface of water it would spread until the thickness of the resulting ’oil film attained molecular dimensions. But the concept of an orientated monolayer existing at homogeneous phase boundaries was not fully developed until Sir William Hardy in England, Irving Langmuir in the United States and Henri Devaux in France commenced their investigations. During the last twenty-five years our knowledge concerning the molecular architecture and properties of these orientated monolayers has greatly increased. Three aspects have been the main Subject-matter of these developments.

Dr. Irving langmuir receives John J. Carty Gold Medal

Dr. Irving langmuir receives John J. Carty Gold Medal

Carty Medal and Award of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences: Dr. Irving Langmuir

Carty Medal and Award of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences: Dr. Irving Langmuir

Royal Society of Edinburgh: Honorary Fellows

AT a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh held on July 4, the following were elected foreign and British honorary fellows of the Society: Foreign: Prof. L. W. Collet, professor of geology, University of Geneva ; Dr. J. G. Davidson, president, Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation, New York ; Prof. E. Fermi, professor of nuclear physics, University of vhicago ; Dr. Irving Langmuir, associate director of the Research Laboratory, General Electric Company, New York ; Dr. J. H. Oort, director of the Leyden Observatory ; Prof. C. J. F. Skottsberg, professor of botany, University of Göteborg, and director of the Botanical Gardens, Göteborg. British: Prof. D. M. S. Watson, Jodrell professor of zoology and comparative anatomy, University College, London ; Prof. G. N. Watson, professor of pure mathematics, University of Birmingham.

MY TRIP TO RUSSIA

ON MAY 19, 1945, only a couple of weeks after the end of the war in Europe, invitations were sent by the Embassy of the USSR to a number of American scientists, asking them to attend the anniversary of the founding the Academy of Sciences by Peter the Great in 1726. Those who accepted were taken by way of Newfoundland, Casablanca, Cairo, and Teheran in a C-54 plane by the United States Government. The party consisted of James W. Alexander, Merrill Bernard, Detlev W. Brook, James W. Church, Henry Field, Jacob Heiman, Charles E. Kellogg, I. M. Kolthoff, Irving Langmuir, Duncan A. MacInnes, James W. McBain, A. P. Nadai, A. U. Pope, Harlow Shapley, Edwin S. Smith, M. S. Vallarta, and T. Von Karman who joined the party in Moscow. The meetings, which were held in Moscow and Leningrad from June 14 to 30, did not constitute an ordinary scientific meeting of the Academy ...

Irving Langmuir — Pioneer in research

The Faraday Medal is awarded not more frequently than once a year, for conspicuous engineering or industrial achievement in electrical engineering, or for a notable service in connection with the development and advancement of electrical science and engineering.