Robert S. Mulliken
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Robert Mulliken | |
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Known for | Molecular orbital theory Quantum chemistry Mulliken electronegativity Mulliken population analysis |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | chemistry, physics |
Robert Sanderson Mulliken
Early years
Robert Mulliken was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His father, Samuel Parsons Mulliken, was a professor of organic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a child, Robert Mulliken learned the name and botanical classification of plants and, in general, had an excellent, but selective, memory. For example, he learned German well enough to skip the course in scientific German in college, but could not remember the name of his high school German teacher. He also made the acquaintance, while still a child, of the physical chemist Arthur Amos Noyes.
Mulliken helped with some of the editorial work when his father wrote his four-volume text on organic compound identification, and thus became an expert on
Education
In high school in Newburyport, Mulliken followed a scientific curriculum. He graduated in 1913 and succeeded in getting a scholarship to MIT which had earlier been won by his father. Like his father, he majored in chemistry. Already as an undergraduate, he conducted his first publishable research: on the synthesis of organic chlorides. Because he was unsure of his future direction, he included some chemical engineering courses in his curriculum and spent a summer touring chemical plants in Massachusetts and Maine. He received his B. S. degree in chemistry from MIT in 1917.
Early career
At this time, the
After the war, he took a job investigating the effects of
Graduate and early postdoctoral education
Mulliken got his doctorate in 1921 based on research into the separation of
At Chicago, he had received a grant from the
In 1925 and 1927, Mulliken traveled to Europe, working with outstanding spectroscopists and quantum theorists such as
Early scientific career
From 1926 to 1928, he taught in the physics department at New York University (NYU). This was his first recognition as a physicist. Though his work had been considered important by chemists, it clearly was on the borderline between the two sciences and both would claim him from this point on. Then he returned to the University of Chicago as an associate professor of physics, being promoted to full professor in 1931. He ultimately held a position jointly in both the physics and chemistry departments. At both NYU and Chicago, he continued to refine his molecular-orbital theory.
Up to this point, the primary way to calculate the
Mulliken became a member of the
Mulliken population analysis is named after him, a method of assigning charges to atoms in a molecule.
Personal life
On December 24, 1929,[6] he married Mary Helen von Noé, daughter of Adolf Carl Noé, a geology professor at the University of Chicago.[7] They had two daughters.
Later years
In 1934, he derived a new scale for measuring the electronegativity of elements. This does not entirely correlate with the scale of Linus Pauling, but is generally in close correspondence.
In World War II, from 1942 to 1945, Mulliken directed the Information Office for the University of Chicago's Plutonium project. Afterward, he developed mathematical formulas to enable the progress of the molecular-orbital theory.
In 1952 he began to apply
At the age of 90, Mulliken died of congestive heart failure at his daughter's home in Arlington County, Virginia on October 31, 1986. His body was returned to Chicago for burial.
See also
- Mulliken symbols
- Adiabatic electron transfer
- Bonding molecular orbital
- Delta bond
- Halogen bond
- Walsh diagram
References
- ^ .Note Longuet-Higgins' amusing title "Selected ploddings of Robert S Mulliken" for reference B238 1965 on page 354 of this Biographical Memoir. The title should be "Selected papers of Robert S Mulliken."
- PMID 17745979.
- ^ "Robert S. Mulliken". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
- ^ "Robert Sanderson Mulliken". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
- ^ Robert S. Mulliken on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1966 Spectroscopy, Molecular Orbitals, and Chemical Bonding
- ISBN 0-8137-1185-1.
- ^ "About Us". World Cultural Council. Retrieved November 12, 2022.
- American Academy of Achievement.
External links
- R. Stephen Berry, Biographical Memoirs, Vol. 78: Robert Sanderson Mulliken, 1896-1986 (Washington, D.C.: The National Academy Press, 2000), pages 146–165. Available on-line at: http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mulliken-robert.pdf .
- Key Participants: Robert Mulliken - Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History
- Guide to the Robert S. Mulliken Papers 1908-1985 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
- Guide to the Robert S. Mulliken Scientific Offprints Collection ca. 1930s-1985 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center