Abstract
THE influence of the contributions to modern chemical thought of Dr. Irving Langmuir, who has been awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry for 1932, is probably more widespread and generally appreciated than those of many of his predecessors. It was as if a new chapter had been commenced in the book of knowledge of the state and behaviour of molecules at interfaces, which forms the very bases of the science of colloids and is of fundamental importance in such diverse ramifications of the physical sciences as heterogeneous catalysis and thermionic emission, when Langmuir published his well-known papers in 1917. As occasionally happens, mathematical treatment may obscure the reality of physical and chemical processes, and that useful tool may prove an obstruction rather than an aid to further advance. It is no exaggeration to say that a new flood of light was thrown on the whole subject of the adsorption of, and reactions of, gases at solid surfaces, as well as the mechanism involved in changes in the surface tension of liquids. There are no better examples of the effects of welding our essentially chemical point of view, in which molecules are regarded as perfectly defined objects of definite form, with a physical appreciation of the general applicability of the Boltzmann distribution law and of the action of local fields of force extending over relatively short distances. This same breadth of treatment is also noted in the more recent and what some may regard as more physical aspects of his work. Thanks to Langmuir, thermionics is now an important branch of physical chemistry.
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A Nobel Prize for Dr. Irving Langmuir. Nature 130, 768 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130768a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130768a0