Latimer, Wendell Mitchell

(b Garnett, Kansas, 22 April 1893; d. Oakland, california, 6 July 1955)

Chemistry.

Latimer entered the University of Kansas planning to become a lawyer; but finding that he enjoyed mathematics, he sought some subject to which he might apply it. His first contact with chemistry came during his third year at the university. The subject captured his interest, and he decided to become a chemist. He received the B.A. degree from the University of Kansas in 1915 and served as instructor there from 1915 to 1917. The reputation of G. N. Lewis and his study of some of Lewis’ papers led Latimer to Berkeley for graduate study, and he received the Ph.D. degree in 1919. His thesis research was concerned with low-temperature calorimetry and was conducted under the direction of G. E. Gibson. He was retained as a member of the staff and attained full professorship in 1931. Latimer was assistant dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1923 to 1924, dean of the College of Chemistry from 1941 to 1949, and chairman of the department of chemistry from 1945 to 1949.

His first paper, Published in 1920 and entitled “Polarity and Ionization From the Standpoint of the Lewis Theory of Valence,” written with W. H. Rodebush, was one of Latimer’s most important. It contained the first clear recognition of the hydrogen bond as distinct from ordinary dipoles. The properties of numerous substances, including water, are largely determined by hydrogen bonding. The basic idea has found very wide and rapidly increasing application. Linus Pauling, who devotes some fifty pages in The Nature of the Chemical Bond to the discussion of examples of hydrogen bonding, states: “I believe that as the methods of structural chemistry are further applied to physiological problems it will be found that the significance of the hydrogen bond for physiology is greater than that of any other single structural feature.”

Latimer’s 108 scientific contributions are largely concerned with the application of thermodynamics to chemistry. However, he worked on such diverse subjects as dielectric constants, thermoelectric effect and electronic entropy, the ionization of salt vapors, radioactivity, and astrochemical processes involved in the formation of the earth.

Latimer was the first in the United States to liquefy hydrogen and to make measurements in that region of temperature. His leadership had a major influence on the subsequent work of W. F. Giauque, who extended the field to even lower temperatures. Latimer used low-temperature data in conjunction with the third law of thermodynamics to determine the entropies and free energies of aqueous ions. This work supplied much of the material included in his outstanding book, The Oxidation States of the Elements and Their Potentials in Aqueous Solutions (1938, 1952). He wrote A Course in General Chemistry with W. C. Bray and Reference Book of Inorganic Chemistry with J. H. Hildebrand.

Latimer was active on national defense research committees from 1941 to 1945 in the fields of oxygen production, chemical warfare, and plutonium research. He was director of a Manhattan Engineering District project in the University of California’s department of chemistry, involving the chemistry of plutonium, from 1943 to 1947.

He was mainly responsible in the 1930’s for initiating a seminar on nuclear chemistry that interested W. F. Libby, G. T. Seaborg, A. C. Wahl, and J. W. Kennedy and helped lay the foundation for the discovery of plutonium. The first separation and identification of plutonium. The first separation and identification of plutonium depended on the relative oxidation potentials of the heaviest elements, and Latimer’s availability for consultation contributed to the discovery of this extremely important element.

Latimer was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Chemistry Section in 1947-1950, of the American Chemical Society, the Electrochemical Society, the Faraday Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the University of Kansas in 1948 and the Nichols Medal of the New York Section of the American Chemical Society in 1955. He was elected faculty research lecturer of the University of California in 1953.

Latimer received the Presidential Certificate of Merit for his contributions during World War II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete bibliography of Latimer’s publications is in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences,32 (1958), 230-237.

The following works may be cited from among his 108 publications: “Entropy Changes at Low Temperatures. I. Formic Acid and Urea. A Test of the Third Law of Thermodynamics,” in Journal of the American Chemical Society,42 (1920), 1533, written with G. E. Gibson and G. S. Parks; “Polarity and Ionization From the Standpoint of the Lewis Theory of Valence,” ibid., 1419, written with W. H. Rodebush; “The Mass Effect in the Entropy of Solids and Gases,” ibid.,44 (1922), 1008, written with G. N. Lewis and G. E. Gibson; “Thermoelectric Force, the Entropy of Electrons and the Specific Heat of Metals at High Temperatures,” ibid., 2136; and “the electrode Potentials of Beryllium, Magnesium, Calcium, Strontium and Barium From Thermal Data,” in Journal of Physical Chemistry,31 (1927), 1267.

In the 1930’s Latimer published A course in General Chemistry, rev. ed. (New York, 1932; 3rd ed., 1940), written with W. C. Bray; “The Existence of Neutrons in the Atomic Nucleus, in Journal of the American Chemical Society,54 (1932), 2125;” Bond Energies and Mass Defects in Atomic Nuclei, “in Journal of Chemical Physics,1 (1933), 133, written with W. F. Libby;” The Action of Neutrons on Heavy Water, “in Physical Review,47 (1935), 424, written with W. F. Libby and E. A. Long;“The Entropy of Aqueous Ions and the Nauture of the Entropy of Hydration,” in Chemical Reviews, 18 (1936), 349; “Silver Chromate: Its Heat Capacity, Entropy and Free Energy of Formation. The Entropy and Free Energy of Formation of Chromate Icon,” in Journal of the American Chemical Society, 59 (1937), 2642, written with W. V.smith and K.S. Pitzer; The Oxidation States of the Elements and Their Potentials in Aqueous solutions (New York, 1938; 2nd ed., 1952); and “The Free Energy of Hydration of Gaseous Ions and the Absolute Potential of the Normal Calomel Electrode,” in Journal of Chemical Physics, 7 (1939), 108, written with K. S. Pitzer and C. M. Slansky.

During the 1940’s there appeared “The Entropies of Large Ions. The Heat Capacity, Entropy and Heat of Solution of Potassium Chlorplatinate, Tetramethylam-monium Iodide and Uranyl Nitrate Hexahydrate,” in Journal of the American Chemical Society, 62 (1940), 2845, written with L. V. Coulter and K. S. Pitzer; “Ionic Entropies and Free Energies and entropies of Solvation in Water–Methanol Solutions, “ibid., 2019, written with C. M. Slansky; and” The Dielectric Constants of Hydrogen–Bonded Substances,” in Chemical Reviews, 44 (1949), 59.

In the 1950’s Latimer published “The Entropy of Aqueous Solutes,” in Journal of Chemical Physics, 19 (1951), 1139, written with R. E. Powell; “Methods of Estimating the Entropies of Solid Compunds,” in Journal fo the American Chemical Society, 73 (1951), 1480; “Absolute Entropies in Liquid Ammonia,” in Journal of the American Chemical Society, 75 (1953), 4147, written with W. L. Jolly; “Heats and Entropies of Successive Steps in the Formation of A1/F₆---,” ibid., 1548, written with Jolly; “The sign of Oxidation-Reduction Potentials,” ibid., 76 (1954), 1200; “Symposium on Hydration of Aqueous Ions, Introductory Remarks,” in Journal of Physical Chemistry, 58 (1954), 513; and “The Complexing of Iron (III) by Fluoride Ions in Aqueous Solution: Free Energies, Heats and Entropies,” in Journal of the American Chemical Society, 78 (1956), 1824, written with R. E. Connick et al.