威拉得·利比

早年生活

利比生于科罗拉多州的Grand Valley。他在加州大学伯克利分校取得了学士学位和博士学位（1933年）。

学术生涯

利比从加州大学伯克利分校博士毕业后，之后成为该校的讲师，及后又成为助理教授。利比于1930年代建造一些盖格计数器去量度自然和人造的弱辐射。于1941年加入美国化学会伯克利分会。

1941年，利比获得古根海姆学者奖后，曾在普林斯顿大学进行过短暂研究，但研究计划被美国卷入第二次世界大战而打断。

二次世界大战爆发后，他和诺贝尔奖得主哈罗德·尤里便投身于哥伦比亚大学的曼哈顿计划。利比负责研究利用气体扩散法来分离与浓缩用于广岛市原子弹的铀同位素铀-235。

1945年，他成为芝加哥大学的教授，并在此发明放射性碳定年法。1954年，他被委任为美国原子能委员会的一员。

1959年，他成为加州大学洛杉矶分校化学系教授，直至1976年退休为止。

1960年，利比获颁诺贝尔化学奖，以表扬他带领其研究团队（博士后研究员 James Arnold 和毕业生 Ernie Anderson）发展出放射性碳定年法。

Willard Frank Libby (December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980) was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.

A 1931 chemistry graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, from which he received his doctorate in 1933, he studied radioactive elements and developed sensitive Geiger counters to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. During World War II he worked in the Manhattan Project's Substitute Alloy Materials (SAM) Laboratories at Columbia University, developing the gaseous diffusion process for uranium enrichment.

After the war, Libby accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago's Institute for Nuclear Studies, where he developed the technique for dating organic compounds using carbon-14. He also discovered that tritium similarly could be used for dating water, and therefore wine. In 1950, he became a member of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He was appointed a commissioner in 1954, becoming its sole scientist. He sided with Edward Teller on pursuing a crash program to develop the hydrogen bomb, participated in the Atoms for Peace program, and defended the administration's atmospheric nuclear testing.

Libby resigned from the AEC in 1959 to become professor of chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a position he held until his retirement in 1976. In 1962, he became the director of the University of California statewide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP).……

Early life and career

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). He had two brothers, Elmer and Raymond, and two sisters, Eva and Evelyn. Libby began his education in a two-room Colorado schoolhouse.……

Manhattan Project

On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, Libby volunteered his services to Nobel Prize laureate Harold Urey.……

Radiocarbon dating

After the war, Libby accepted an offer from the University of Chicago of a professorship in the chemistry department at the new Institute for Nuclear Studies. He returned to his pre-war studies of radioactivity. In 1939, Serge Korff had discovered that cosmic rays generated neutrons in the upper atmosphere.……

Atomic Energy Commission

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Gordon Dean appointed Libby to its influential General Advisory Committee (GAC) in 1950. In 1954, he was appointed an AEC commissioner by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the recommendation of Dean's successor, Lewis Strauss.……

UCLA

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.……

Awards and honors

Libby was an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.……

Personal life

In 1940, Libby married Leonor Hickey, a physical education teacher. They had twin daughters, Janet Eva and Susan Charlotte, who were born in 1945.