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GIBBS MEDAL AWARD The Willard Gibbs Medal, for the year 1915, was conferred upon Dr. Arthur A. Noyes, the celebrated physical chemist, a t the April meeting of the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society, held April 16, 1 9 1 5 . After an introductory address by Chairman Otto Eisenschiml, of the Chicago Section, the medal was presented by Professor Julius Stieglitz, of Chicago University. Following the presentation and acceptance of the medal, informal addresses were made by President W. E. Stone, of Purdue University; Prof. James H. Tufts, representing the City Club; and by President Kenneth Lockett, of the Chicago Tech. Club. The presentation address, and a short abstract of Dr. Noyes’ Willard Gibbs Address on “A System of Qualitative Analysis, Including Nearly All the Metallic Elements,” are given below. It is expected that the papers dealing with this subject will be published later in the Journal of the American Chemical
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turning to the Institute he served four years as assistant and associate professor of organic chemistry and in 1899 was made professor of theoretical chemistry; in 1903 he became director of the Research Laboratory of Physical Chemistry. From 1907 to 1909 Professor K-oyes was acting president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and of numerous other scientific societies. During 1904 he was president of the American Chemical Society and served for many years as a member of its board of editors. He is the author of several books in the fields of physical, organic and analytical chemistry, and is especially well known for his many important contributions to the ionic theory and its applications. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemic.- [W. D HARKINS. ]
PRESENTATION
ADDRESS By JULIUS STIBGLITZ
The Willard Gibbs Medal MR.CHAIRMAN, DR.KOYRS, was founded in 1910 by LADIESA N D GENTLEMEN : William A. Converse. After serving for seven years as Illustr ous men, leaders of secretary and one year as thought in our science, have Chairman of the Chicago added, by the dignity of Section, Mr. Converse was their names, to the significompelled by growing busicance of the award of the ness responsibilities to retire Willard Gibbs Medal by the from active connection with Chicago Section of the Amerthe Section. I n token of ican Chemical S o c i e t y : his continued interest in its Svante A. Arrhenius, founder welfare, he donated a sum of the theory of ionization; sufficient to enable the SecTheodore Richards, genial tion to bestow annually a leader of one of the earliest gold medal in recognition onslaughts on the secrets of and e n c o u r a g e m e n t of the subatomic world; Leo H . eminent research in theoretiBaekeland, inventor of Velox cal or applied chemistryand Bakelite and through the recipient to be selected them and their followers disby a competent jury and t o penser of the pleasures of be obligated only to the expicture making and of music tent of delivering an address to millions of art lovers; Ira before the Section on some Remsen, sturdy sponsor for topic in his field of research. American chemical research The medal was called after in the days when i t stood in ARTHUR AMOS NOYES-WILLARD GIBBS MEDALIST, 1915 J . Willard Gibbs, by persorest need of protection-we mission of his nearest surlook with pride on the high viving relatives. The medal has now been conferred upon purpose which these names show t o be underlying the foundation five great chemists: and award of our medal. And tonight we are adding to the luster of the medal by bestowing it on another of those brilliant SVANTB AUGUSTARRHENIUS 191 1 WILLIAMTHEODORE RICHARDS 1912 Americans, whose genius is fast making American chemical reLEO H. BAEKRLAND 1913 search in quality the peer of any in the world. Many of us will IRA REMSBN 1914 recall that when Arrhenius was here and told us his own pic1915 ARTHUR AUOS N O Y E S turesque story of the history of his theory, he remarked that the Arthur Amos Noyes was born in Newburyport, Mass., Sept. very finest work in developing his theory in the way of rigorous 13, 1866. He was graduated from the Massachusetts Institute measurements was being done in this country in the research of Technology in 1886 and obtained the Master’s degree from laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the same institution the following year. After a year spent as the direction of Arthur Amos Noyes. With accuracy as its goal assistant in analytical and organic chemistry, he went t o the and scientific honesty as its talisman, the laboratory of Dr. University of Leipzig where after two years of study with Pro- Noyes has produced classic after classic on the conductivity fessor Wilhelm Ostwald he obtained the doctor’s degree. Re- relations forming the basis of the theory of ionization. Every
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theory, however brilliant its success may be in its first qualitative and roughly quantitatjve garb, must, in order to survive and prove its permanent justification, conform ultimately t o the test of minutely accurate quantitative measurement. This necessary and vital service t o the theory of ionization was undertaken by Dr. Noyes and his associates and has been brilliantly carried out. Last year, in his Faraday address in London, Arrhenius again and again referred gratefully to the value of this work. I t is interesting t o note that this insistence on the utmost limits of accuracy is becoming the most striking characteristic of the genius of our best American scientists: to mention only a few names familiar to all of us. We saw i t in Gibbs in his far-going mathematical analysis of chemical and physical changes; we find i t in Michelson, in Richards, in Morley, in Millikan-and again, tonight, in our medalist. This insistence on accuracy is evident in all of the contributions of Dr. Noyes to chemistry: van’t Hoff developed a method for determining the order of a given chemical reaction, but van’t Hoff’s formula was, after all, not a rigorous one and sometimes left one in doubt as t o the result: a more reliable formula, based on rigorous analysis, was developed by Dr. Noyes and is displacing van’t Hoff’s. Accuracy again characterized the searching work of Dr. Noyes on the sensitiveness of indicators, on the correct use and understanding of which the reliability of so much of our technical and scientific research and practice depends. Undoubtedly it was this same pressing need of accuracy that led Dr. hToyes into the monumental work on which we shall hear him speak tonight: his work on the revision of the methods of qualitative analysis. Bringing to this labor the ardor for exactness combined with a masterly knowledge of the laws of physical chemistry-an advantage not held by his greatest predecessor in this field, Fresenius-Dr. Noyes could be content with nothing less than methods which approach quantitative analysis in accuracy, content with nothing less than a system broad enough t o include ultimately the rare as well as the common elements in its scope. He thus escaped the chance for error inherent in older methods, which results from the setting of limitations not recognized by nature. I cannot close this short review of some of the contributions of our medalist to our science without a grateful recognition of two other important forms of service other than original investigation: Dr. Noyes has been uniquely successful in associating with himself a group of great chemists: Lewis, Whitney, Washburn, Kraus, Bray, Tolman, Harkins are carrying the traditions of accuracy and thoroughness of his laboratory into all parts of our country, in technical as well as scientific fields, in work fertilized by their own brilliant ideas, characterized by the standards of the research laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I n the second place, Dr. Noyes has been and is a great teacher of the young, the undergraduate chemist-to-be: like A. W. Hofmann, in his day the greatest teacher of chemistry in the world, Dr. Noyes has insisted on presenting to the beginners in chemistry the new physicochemical theories in lucid, transparent terms, and, in pursuance of this ideal, he has invented a long series of beautiful lecture experiments on physico-chemical relations-the best we have, which, like Hofmann’s, are now incorporated, more or less consciously or unconsciously, into our best elementary courses. These lecture experiments, like the work on the theory of ionization, like the work on qualitative analysis, have already become classics of American chemical endeavor. To DR. NOYES: In consideration of these great contributions to chemistry by you, Dr. Arthur Amos Noyes, as a n investigator and as a teacher, the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society decided t o bestow upon you its highest honor, the Willard Gibbs Medal, founded by our service-loving fellow member, Mr. William’ A. Converse. In the name of the Section, I have the
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honor t o present t o you this, the Fifth Willard Gibbs Medal, with the best wishes for, and confidence in, further great productive work on your part on behalf of our common science and country.
ADDRESS OF ACCEPTANCE’ B y ARTHURAMOSN O Y E S
I n replying t o the address of presentation, Dr. Noyes expressed his deep appreciation of the honor conferred upon him, particularly in being placed in a group with the four great chemists to whom the award has been given on previous occasions, and most of all in being presented with a medal given in the name of America’s greatest chemist, Willard Gibbs. He also wished the Section t o know how much more h e valued such an honor on account of the fact that i t came as a token of appreciation from his fellow chemists, of work done in the past. On account of the fact t h a t the work which he described in his address is still incomplete, even although it is finished in all its essential parts, Dr. Noyes has decided that it will be best at this time to publish only a short abstract written by one of the members of the Section. The work when completed will be published in full. The driving force which kept him a t work during fifteen years of investigation was his feeling of the great need of chemists for a systematic scheme of qualitative analysis to include all of the elements. The lack of such a scheme was most vividly impressed upon his mind when twenty years ago he received from Colorado a n ore said to contain uranium. Even by making use of the best methods then available it took three weeks t o determine that the rare element present was not uranium but vanadium. This incident he cited t o illustrate the difficulties which then lay in the path of chemists when they started out to make analyses for the rare elements by using the isolated statements which were all that could be found in the literature a t that time. Now many of the so called rare elements have been found in such large quantities that they are no longer rare. The reason for the omission of these elements from the ordinary scheme for a qualitative analysis is twofold: ( I ) the historical development of analytical chemistry; ( 2 ) the fact that they are more difficult t o detect than most of the common elements. On the other hand, many of these so-called rare elements have come to play an enormously important part in science and industry, and some of them, for example titanium, have been found to be much more abundant in nature than some of the members of t h e group of the 2 1 common elements. I n steel, tungsten, vanadium, and uranium have found a n extensive use; thorium and cerium have come t o be enormously important in the making of mantles for gas lighting, while tantalum, and to a greater extent tungsten, have rendered the same service in connection with lighting by electricity. I n papers already published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society a revision of the usual scheme of analysis for the common elements has been described, and in this a few of the rare elements have been included. In the present scheme the aim has been to provide for the detection of nearly all of the rare elements as well as the common ones, and a t the same time t o develop such detailed and explicit instructions that the results of a n analysis may be certain if carried out by a chemist of ordinary skill. The aim has been to provide a method which will detect the presence of I mg. of any element in a mixture with 500 mg. of any common element or elements, or with roo mg. of any rare element, It is often stated that a qualitative analysis is unnecessary if a quantitative analysis is to be made, and that the former is only a waste of time. That this is not in general true is proved by the fact that many quantitative analyses are made inexact by a failure t o realize the presence of a n ele1 Abstracted, by consent of the author, b y Professor William D. Harkins. of Chicago University.
