HAROLD CLAYTON UREY: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE - ARTE - 2025

Harold Clayton Urey (1893-1981) was a university professor who in 1934 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering deuterium. He came across the finding after conducting various investigations on isotopes.

The contributions of Harold Clayton Urey are considered invaluable, since deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen, is used to study reaction mechanisms and biochemical processes. It should also be noted that it is an essential component of thermonuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.

The scientist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934. Public Domain, Urey is also credited with the Theory of Paleontological Evolution. He is considered one of the most important American chemists of the 20th century. His research in atomic chemistry and physics made him worthy of different awards.

A lunar crater and an asteroid are named after him, as a way to commemorate his contribution after studying the formation of meteorites and the surface of the moon. A high school in Indiana was also named in his honor.

Biography

Childhood

Harold Clayton Urey was born on April 29, 1893. His parents were the Reverend Samuel Clayton Urey and Cora Rebecca Riensehl. He lost his father to tuberculosis when he was only six years old.

During his childhood he attended rural schools in Indiana, grew up humble and his biography books describe how he went from being a farm boy to a scientific celebrity.

Studies

He graduated from elementary school at age 14 and from high school in 1911. At that time he obtained a teaching certificate and went on to teach at a small school in Indiana.

In 1917 he obtained a bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Montana. After graduation, he spent two years as a research chemist at the Barret Company and subsequently entered the University of California, where he received a doctorate in chemistry.

Urey's eagerness for knowledge led him to study atomic physics at the University of Copenhagen with Niels Bohr, who was awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Teaching

At the age of 38 he began a prominent career as a university professor, imparting his knowledge in the following houses of higher studies:

-University of Montana

-Johns Hopkins University

-University of Columbia

-University of Chicago

-Oxford University

-University of California, where he helped create the Faculty of Sciences.

After retiring as a teacher, he published 105 scientific articles, of which 47 were related to lunar themes.

Personal life

As an anecdotal fact, it is known that Urey was fond of gardening and raising cattle. He was also a lover of orchids, his favorites being the so-called boat orchids.

He married Frieda Daum in 1826, from that union four children were born: three girls and one boy. He passed away in La Jolla, California on January 5, 1981 at the age of 88. His remains rest in Fairfield Cemetery in Indiana.

Contributions to science

His findings were important in building the atomic bomb. Charles Levy

There are those who consider that as a scientist he had a prodigious mind. His studies and research made significant contributions to science, these are the most important:

Heavy isotope

As a teacher, Urey conducted numerous experiments that allowed him to build theories. The most prominent was made in 1932, when he discovered the heavy isotope of hydrogen called deuterium. After this finding, he developed a procedure to obtain heavy water.

To achieve this, it was based on the isolation of heavy isotopes from oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur and carbon.

This discovery was worth to him to direct during World War II a group of investigation on the methods of separation of the isotope in the University of Columbia. Their findings contributed to the development of the atomic bomb.

The revelation of the heavy isotope earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the money from the award he used to fund his own research. He also contributed to Isidor Isaac Rabi (Nobel Prize in Physics 1944) to advance his plans on molecular beams.

Manhattan Project

This project was developed during the Second World War based on in-depth studies for the enrichment of uranium and separation of heavy isotopes by means of the centrifugal method. The Manhattan Project also contemplated gaseous and thermal diffusion.

Urey was appointed head of the Alloy Materials Laboratories, but in his time through this project he encountered technical obstacles and did not achieve immediate positive results.

However, after the war, the investigations gave results and the method proposed by Urey is used in many countries.

The American professor left the Manhattan Project in 1945. Since then some errors have been corrected, but in essence Urey's work has been kept, and the plant became the most important for postwar isotope separation.

Cosmochemistry

Urey is the founder of cosmochemistry, whose term is used to describe the field of modern lunar science. He also dabbled in geophysics, studied the origin of the solar system, and conducted paleontological research.

From these initiatives the books Atoms, Molecules and Stories and Planets: Their Origin and Development were born, both being written together with the American physicist Arthur Edward Ruark.

He developed a great passion for space science. In fact, when Apollo 11 returned to earth with lunar samples, Urey took it upon himself to examine them.

In 1953, together with the student Stanley Miller, he carried out the so-called Miller-Urey experiment which resulted in the formation of four amino acids, which are basic components of the existence of the earth. The success of this find gave a turn to the investigations on the origin of life.

Measure temperatures

The findings of this chemical scientist made it possible in 1940 to develop a method to determine the temperature of ocean waters 180 million years ago, and thus be able to study the abundances of elements on earth.

Today, its formula is used universally to develop an analysis of the warming and cooling cycles of the planet.

Recognitions

Urey's research earned him important accolades, some of the most prominent being:

-Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1934)

-Davy Medal awarded by the Royal Society (1940)

-Medal of Merit from the United States Government (1946)

-Diploma of Honor of the American Institution of Chemists (1954)

-National Medal of Science (1964)

-Gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1966)

-Priestley Medal awarded by the American Chemical Society in 1973.

References

1. Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1966
2. Laura Gieske Evans and Thomas A. Evans. Portraits Harold Clayton Urey. Taken from the Michigan State University website chemistry.msu.edu
3. C250 Celebrates Columbias Ahead of their Time (2004) Harold Clayton Urey. Taken from columbia.edu
4. Matthew Shindell (2019) The Life and Science of Harold C. Urey
5. Carl Sagan, IS Shklovskii (2003) Intelligent life in the universe.