The Life of Theodore William Richards
Theodore W. Richards When Richards’ family returned to he United States, he entered Haverford College, Pennsylvania at fourteen years old in 1883. Studying hard he managed to receive his Bachelor’s Degree in Science about two years later. Afterwards, he decided to transfer to Harvard University and received a Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in 1886; he continued at Harvard to get his Masters and his Ph. D. in Chemistry two more years after that. He studied to determine the “atomic weight of oxygen” in relation to the element “hydrogen.” Richards then had begun studying under the German professor Victor Meyerand other chemists. After rigorous studying, he returned to Harvard as a chemistry assistant. As time passed, he continued to succeed, in which he “successfully became instructor” in 1891, “assistant professor” in 1894, and finally a full-fledged professor 7 years later. It was then Richards was offered a “full professorship in the University of Gottingen in which he declines. Richards moves further on by becoming Chairman of the Chemistry Department at Harvard University; nine years later he is appointed “Director of the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory. Majority of Richard’s work has concerned atomic weight, his first experiment dealing with copper and oxygen. He invented “the nephelometer and demonstrated the insidious effect of occluded moisture in gases and solids.” Eventually, he accurately configures the atomic weight of more than “thirty different elements” and starts the experiment to determine the atomic weight of isotopesguides by J.P. Cooke. He also studied volume on the molecular and atomic levels and he created a hypothesis of atoms that are compressible. After testing theories and applying new techniques for experimentation, he “introduced the use of transition temperatures of pure hydrated salts as fixed points in the standardization of thermometers;” also under his guidance, “fundamentals of adiabatic...