Willard Frank Libby (December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980) was an Americanphysical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development ofradiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionizedarchaeology andpalaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded theNobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.
After the war, Libby accepted a professorship at theUniversity of Chicago'sInstitute for Nuclear Studies, where he developed the technique for dating organic compounds usingcarbon-14. He also discovered thattritium similarly could be used for dating water, and therefore wine. In 1950, he became a member of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of theAtomic Energy Commission (AEC). He was appointed a commissioner in 1954, becoming its sole scientist. He sided withEdward Teller on pursuing a crash program to develop thehydrogen bomb, participated in theAtoms for Peace program, and defended the administration's atmosphericnuclear testing.
Libby resigned from the AEC in 1959 to become professor of chemistry atUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a position he held until his retirement in 1976. In 1962, he became the director of theUniversity of California statewide Institute ofGeophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). He started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972, and as a member of theCalifornia Air Resources Board, he worked to develop and improve California's air pollution standards.
Willard Frank Libby was born in Parachute, Colorado, on December 17, 1908, the son of farmers Ora Edward Libby and his wife Eva May (née Rivers).[1] He had two brothers, Elmer and Raymond, and two sisters, Eva and Evelyn.[2] Libby began his education in a two-room Colorado schoolhouse.[3] When he was five, Libby's parents moved toSanta Rosa, California.[4] He attendedAnaly High School, inSebastopol, from which he graduated in 1926.[5] Libby, who grew to be 6 feet 2 inches (188 cm) tall, playedtackle on the high schoolfootball team.[6]
In 1927 he entered the University of California, Berkeley, where he received hisBS in 1931, and hisPhD in 1933,[1] writing his doctoral thesis on the "Radioactivity of ordinary elements, especially samarium and neodymium: method of detection"[7] under the supervision ofWendell Mitchell Latimer.[8] Independently of the work ofGeorge de Hevesy and Max Pahl, he discovered that the natural long-lived isotopes ofsamarium primarily decay by emission ofalpha particles.[9]
Libby was appointed Instructor in the department of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1933.[1] He became anassistant professor of chemistry there in 1938.[10] He spent the 1930s building sensitiveGeiger counters to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity.[9] He joined Berkeley's chapter ofAlpha Chi Sigma in 1941.[11] That year he was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship,[10] and elected to work atPrinceton University.[6]
On December 8, 1941, the day after theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States intoWorld War II, Libby volunteered his services to Nobel Prize laureateHarold Urey. Urey arranged for Libby to be given leave from the University of California, Berkeley and to join him atColumbia University to work on theManhattan Project, the wartime project to developatomic bombs,[1][6] at what became its Substitute Alloy Materials (SAM) Laboratories.[12] During his time in the New York City area, Libby was a resident ofLeonia, New Jersey.[13]
Over the next three years, Libby worked on thegaseous diffusion process foruranium enrichment.[4] An atomic bomb requiredfissile material, and the fissileuranium-235 made up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. The SAM Laboratories therefore had to find a way of separating kilograms of it from the more abundanturanium-238. Gaseous diffusion worked on the principle that a lighter gas diffuses through a barrier faster than a heavier one at a rate inversely proportional to its molecular weight. But the only known gas containing uranium was the highly corrosiveuranium hexafluoride, and a suitable barrier was hard to find.[14]
Through 1942, Libby and his team studied different barriers and the means to protect them from corrosion from the uranium hexafluoride.[15] The most promising type was a barrier made of powderednickel developed by Edward O. Norris of the Jelliff Manufacturing Corporation and Edward Adler from theCity College of New York, which became known as the "Norris-Adler" barrier by late 1942.[16]
In addition to developing a suitable barrier, the SAM Laboratories also had to assist in the design of a gaseous separation plant, which became known asK-25. Libby helped with the engineers fromKellex to produce a workable design for a pilot plant.[17] Libby conducted a series of tests that indicated that the Norris-Adler barrier would work, and he remained confident that with an all-out effort, the remaining problems with it could be solved. Although doubts remained, construction work began on the K-25 full-scale production plant in September 1943.[18]
As 1943 gave way to 1944, many problems remained. Tests began on the machinery at K-25 in April 1944 without a barrier. Attention turned to a new process developed by Kellex. Finally, in July 1944, Kellex barriers began to be installed in K-25.[19] K-25 commenced operation in February 1945, and as cascade after cascade came online, the quality of the product increased. By April 1945, K-25 had attained a 1.1% enrichment.[20] Uranium partially enriched in K-25 was fed into thecalutrons atY-12 to complete the enrichment process.[21]
Construction of the upper stages of the K-25 plant was cancelled, and Kellex was directed to instead design and build a 540-stage side feed unit, which became known as K-27.[22] The last of K-25's 2,892 stages commenced operation in August 1945.[20] On August 5, K-25 starting producing feed enriched to 23 percent uranium-235.[23] K-25 and K-27 achieved their full potential only in the early postwar period, when they eclipsed the other production plants and became the prototypes for a new generation of plants.[20] Enriched uranium was used in theLittle Boy bomb employed in thebombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.[24] Libby brought home a stack of newspapers and told his wife, "This is what I've been doing."[6]
Thehalf-life of carbon-14 is 5,730±40 years.[27] Libby realized that when plants and animals die they cease to ingest fresh carbon-14, thereby giving any organic compound a built-in nuclear clock.[26] He published his theory in 1946,[28][29] and expanded on it in his monographRadiocarbon Dating in 1955. He also developed sensitive radiation detectors that could make the measurements required by the technique. Tests againstsequoia with known dates from their tree rings showedradiocarbon dating to be reliable and accurate. The technique revolutionisedarchaeology,palaeontology and other disciplines that dealt with ancient artefacts.[4] In 1960, he was awarded theNobel Prize in Chemistry "for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science".[30] He also discovered thattritium similarly could be used for dating water, and therefore wine.[26]
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) ChairmanGordon Dean appointed Libby to its influential General Advisory Committee (GAC) in 1950. In 1954, he was appointed an AEC commissioner byPresidentDwight D. Eisenhower on the recommendation of Dean's successor,Lewis Strauss. Libby and his family moved from Chicago toWashington, D.C. He brought with him a truckload of scientific equipment, which he used to establish a laboratory at theCarnegie Institution there to continue his studies ofamino acids. Staunchly conservative politically, he was one of the few scientists who sided withEdward Teller rather thanRobert Oppenheimer during the debate on whether it was wise to pursue a crash program to develop thehydrogen bomb.[6] As a commissioner, Libby played an important role in promoting Eisenhower'sAtoms for Peace program,[9] and was part of the United States delegation at the Geneva Conferences on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1955 and 1958.[6][31]
As the only scientist among the five AEC commissioners, it fell to Libby to defend the Eisenhower administration's stance on atmosphericnuclear testing.[32] He argued that the dangers of radiation from nuclear tests were less than that from chest X-rays, and therefore less important than the risk of having an inadequate nuclear arsenal, but his arguments failed to convince the scientific community or reassure the public.[9][33] In January 1956, he publicly revealed the existence ofProject Sunshine, a series of secret research studies to ascertain the impact of radioactive fallout on the world's population that he had initiated in 1953 while serving on the GAC. The project caused controversy after it was revealed to the public and with the revelation it was found out that much of the research involved stealing the bodies of dead children without the parents' consent and doing radioactive experiments on them. Many of the 1,500 sample cadavers were babies and young children, and were taken from countries from Australia to Europe, often without their parents' consent or knowledge.[34] By 1958, even Libby and Teller were supporting limits on atmospheric nuclear testing.[35]
Libby resigned from the AEC in 1959, and he became professor of chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. He taught honors freshman chemistry. In 1962, he became the director of the University of California statewide Institute ofGeophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP), a position he also held until 1976. His time as director encompassed theApollo space program and the lunar landings.[4][8]
Libby started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972.[8] As a member of theCalifornia Air Resources Board, he worked to develop and improve California's air pollution standards.[9] He established a research program to investigateheterogeneous catalysis with the idea of reducing emissions from motor vehicles through more complete fuel combustion.[8] The election ofRichard Nixon as president in 1968 generated speculation that Libby might be appointed as Presidential Science Advisor. There was a storm of protest from scientists who felt that Libby was too conservative, and the offer was not made.[36]
Although Libby retired and became aprofessor emeritus in 1976,[8] he remained professionally active until his death in 1980.[3]
In 1940, Libby married Leonor Hickey, aphysical education teacher.[6] They had twin daughters, Janet Eva and Susan Charlotte, who were born in 1945.[2]
Libby, W. F. (August 4, 1958).Progress in the use of isotopes. The Atomic Triad - reactors, radioisotopes and radiation. Second United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Atomic Energy Commission.OSTI4325402.
Libby, W. F. (August 1967).History of Radiocarbon Dating. Symposium on radioactive dating and methods of low-level counting. Monaco. pp. 3–25.OCLC4433103714.OSTI4582402.
Libby, L. M.; Libby, W. F. (October 18, 1972).Vulcanism and radiocarbon dates. International radiocarbon dating conference. Wellington, New Zealand.CiteSeerX10.1.1.736.4982.OSTI4246295.
Libby, W. F. (October 18, 1972).Radiocarbon dating, memories, and hopes. International Conference on Radiocarbon Dating. Wellington, New Zealand.CiteSeerX10.1.1.473.4730.OSTI4247579.
^"Well-Read, Well-Shaded and Well-Placed".The New York Times. June 15, 1997. RetrievedMarch 30, 2011.Much later, its residents included five Nobel Prize winners, among them Enrico Fermi, one of the developers of the atomic bomb, and Willard Libby, who discovered radiocarbon dating; Sammy Davis Jr., Pat Boone and Alan Alda, the entertainers, and Robert Ludlum, the author
^Korff, S. A. (December 1, 1940). "On the contribution to the ionization at sea-level produced by the neutrons in the cosmic radiation".Journal of the Franklin Institute.230 (6):777–779.doi:10.1016/S0016-0032(40)90838-9.
^abcWillard Libby on Nobelprize.org, accessed 1 May 2020 including the Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1960Radiocarbon Dating
^"2016 Awardees".American Chemical Society, Division of the History of Chemistry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences. 2016. RetrievedJune 14, 2017.
^"Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award"(PDF).American Chemical Society, Division of the History of Chemistry. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Chemical Sciences. 2016. RetrievedJune 14, 2017.
Greene, Benjamin P. (2007).Eisenhower, Science Advice, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1945–1963. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.ISBN978-0-8047-5445-3.OCLC65204949.
