--
_I
Professor and Mrs. Henrv Evrina
. .
-
University of Utah Salt Lake City. 84112
Interview with Professor and Mrs. Henry Eyring by Robert C. Brasted
Robert C. Brasted University of Minnesota Minneapolis. 55455
If is always of interest to our readers, Dr. Eyring, to know something of the background of the person being interviewed; that is, your birthplace as well as any information that might include geographic factors that influencedyou in your decisions in science. Eyring: I'd like to do that. My parents were born h St. George, Utah but in the mMie Eighties, my wndparents moved io Mexico. lgrew up in the Mormon Colony, ColoniaJuarez. some 100 miles soulh of the American border in ihe state of Chihuahua. This was canle country. We had canle and horses and farmland. Economicaily we were very well off. It was a wholesome environment and I enjoyed riding through the range country with my father. We lefi Mexico when I was eleven years old because of the Mexican Rewlution, establishing our residence in El Paso. Texas. We essentially lefi everything behind in Mexico. Brasfed: We could hardly say that ihe geographic area of Mexico had a great bearing on your decision to move inm a science field. Eyring: hb, but nwre s h i d be m. We spent only a year in N Paso stillhoping to go back to Mexico. Things didn't improve. hstead, my father bought a farm in Arizona. I grew up in swfheasfwn Arizona some forty miles *m ihe New Mexico border and 190 miles from Mexico. h s t e d : Didyourmaikrand f a i k r foster the idea ofa s c i e n whether it be in engineering or otherwise? Eyring: My parents, of course, were born on the frontier so they themeIves didnot have ihe advantage of universiiytraining. W father had Me ODOOrmni W .. . to 00 io the univeniW but tum6d it down with the interesting remark that he thought he would wait untilhe hadbetterteachersin the "hweafier". ldidrwow up h a home where education was considered to be very important. I hadan older sister who went away to the university. She came back to me wiih the idea of ihe imporlance ofgeninga PhD. Thatadvicehada verysironginfiuence on my entering a science field. All in all the idea of family tradition was important in influencing me. Brasted: Might we inquire about your early schooling, particularly at the secondary level? Where was this achieved and were Brasted.
-
752 / Journal of Chemical Education
there any teachers y w can now identify as influencing your career? Eyring: The high school that I went to was a church-related high school, the Gila Academv in Thatcher near Pima. Arizona. i had finished the eighth grade in Pima. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and lachieveda record that was, to say the least, acceptable. Nowdays I think we would call it 4.0. The "hem" of ihe Academy fw me was a W. Alma Sessions. He had been a star on the basketball team at the University of Arizona. He was an electrical engineer who had returned to the high school with great enthusiasm. He believed in inwlvement in the real sense. For instance, he took us into the field where we surveyeda place for buildinga dam. He had actually built his own telescope andshared his excite meni in all these endaavors with us. He knew of my love for mathematics although I was actually in his science classes. I recall one day his saying. "You like this sort of thing: you should be an engineer': He was weN aware that curricula verv well done at the Universitv of Arizona was and still is in mining anda s m n d i n electrical engineering.Mr Sessions recommended that I fake one of these. I admired him and respected his judgment. However, I decided that if I took electrical endneering. . I'd surely electrocufe myself but I might survive mining. I went to the Universifyof A r i m and registered in mining engineering. Brasted: You have, then, provided an answer to my nexi question. Your undergraduate iraining was at the UniversityofArizona at Tucson in engineering? That's a far cry fmmywr eventual career. M y we pursue this a bit fu&r? I'm anxiws to know something about your undergraduate training and the names of people that might come back to you who played a role similar to that of Alma Sessions. Eyring: My bent for mathematics was a veryreal one. h fact I would have taken up a mathematics career if I hadn't had ihe feeling that if I did, I'd have to work for some corporation or UnC versify president with whom I might not agree because of limited opporiunities in that fieM I felt it was m e imporlant to follow my own interests than to actually follow some parficular line of business. Idid wrihs a ihesis in m-tim.
-
A man by the name of Cressy, a very comcompt mathematician and one who had come to the University of Arizona, was infiwntial in guiding me. Emsted: How did yaw mathematics and engineering mining inflwme your graduate training7 Eyh!g Actually I enpyed my mining balning. Idid very wallgadewise but I was not then, nor am I now, in my hean dedicated to gening rich. I was much more Interested in how things worked. Mining did not provide this interest I finished, got my w e e as o m does, andmade ttm misiake of going down into a mine. When /got down into ttm socail6dcavingsystem of ttm Inspiration Copper Company ofMami, Arizona. I found wt that, h reality, it was espscially dangwour. For example. on one night shin there were three separate fataiaccidents. This just didn't make any sense on a percentage basis. Although I wasn't frightenedin the sense that I feit Ineeded to tun away, ithose kind of OddF seemed pmhibltive to me. Even though as an engineer I wouldn't have to take excessive chances, i would have to send others down, assuming responsibility for theirsafety. Somehow this prospect cooled my enthusiasm. Brasted: 1think that's easily appreciated. 1have spent some time in the mines of the Bune-Anaconda area. At some several thousand feet down. I wonderedat thatpoint whether there was a godreason for my being there. lt is stillnot obvious what factors were influential in your choice of a graduate school. Was R more of a place o r a person or both that hfiuenced your choice? Eyring: There were several facton that may be of interest. Although having decided not to go on with mining, I did decide that metallurgy might be interesting. I completeda Masters Degree in that area. Working in a copper smelter and in an a m of sulfw along with o w less than ideal renditions msde fhis unanractive to me. Unless one again was really dedicated to making money at such a trade, it didn't seem to me that this was what I wanted to do. A more anractive situation c a m a& in which I was invited to r e t m to teach chemistry fora year at the University of Arizona. Two very fine people there were influaniial in my later decision. On? was hfessor Lathrop E. Roberts who had taken his PhDat the University of Chicago with PrDfessor Harkins and the other was Professor TheophilBuehrer.His PhD was from Berkeley. Each of them toid me of the advantaws of his university. Chicago and the University of Califwnia. They recommended me so highly that I was acceptedat bofh places. They were the only places to which i applied. Obviously a decision had to be made based on verv iinle hfwmatbn since i had never been east of El Paso, Texas. I couldhardly be called, at that pomt. rorldlyl But I did Know the difference between $700 and $750.~ina, Berkeley offwedths $750, andsina, G. N. Lewis was the star, or as y w have just said the "prson, " I decided in favor of the ~nfversityo i California. d f course, Harkins of Chicago was very well known also. ~rasted: hat $ 5 i i s something less than crass commen:ia~ism.mis next point is more theoretical than practical but would you care to comment on the rigor, the level, the intensify ofyour work at that time compared with or contrasted to what we expect of our graduate stwdents now? Eyring: I must be something less than direct. Berkeley was indsed an excltingpiace. When one went fhere, you yw m~entially given the keys to iheplace. Theysaid, "We're givingyou the kevs of the citv. aet what vou want but don'tabuse the ~ r i v ilege. " It was a place where Lewis emphasized goad fellowship. I foundit tobea ve~ymngenialatmphere for study and for living. I'dpuwn up on h e farm in Arizona. I was used to hard work. 1aciuailv finished my e m in two Years. This .d . meant working long hours. I typically went to the laboratory about 8:00 in the morninqandseMom lefibefore t0:OOp.m. or later. By working holidays and other days, I really had in that two-year period done preny much the work that would be accomplished in a much longer period. My situation was unique. I had gone there with mining engineering training as
Brasted: Eyriingr
Brasted: Eyring:
a beckuround, not chemistry. The result was that I finished my PhD with only one f m l course m Physics and only l r o or three courses m Chemistry Berkeley cla!med strength !n emphaslrmg research Any able person could, through hard work and M t c a t ~ o ncomplere , a degree foIiowlng fhe example set by Lewis and his associates ina shwterperiod than was usual. Lewis and his faculty were indeed exciting people. Now again my bent for mathematics showed. I t w k seven graduate courses in mathematics. I took no Physics simply because you took a minor in one or the other, and I like mathematicsso I t w k m y c o m e work in that field. lhad only two formal graduate courses in Chemistry. One was resewch and tha o w was thernKdymmlcs which I had had before. That's still a tradition at Barkeley-less stress on formal course work and more on research. Yes. I'm sure that that wwks with some people mxe than wilh others, 1 think in my own case I would have been bener served with more course work because of the fact that i'd come with so linle background in Chemistry. For 0 t h ~ ~ . obviously the program has been a good one. Do you remember yaw first publication? Was it with G. N. Lewis? No, my first publication was with my director, Professor George Ernest Gibson, a tremendousiy competent and exciting individual to work with. i remember him with great pleasure. He was imaginative and humanly anractive. My thesis with Gibson initially started out with a problem of subiectino low Dressure hvdroeen to an eleven million volf . discharge. Our objective was to produce protons as projectiles for a beryiiium target. b that day, it presented a great dsal of excitement. Gibson wasa person of great imagination although our work in this area was unprodoctive. The high frequency discharges were noncooperative. They didn? realize they . ought . to stay inside the glass tube. They would simply come through shanering the tube. My final thesis inv o i d working on the ionization andstoppingpowerof alpha particles in a variety of gases. The final workat Berkeieyat that time was becoming oriented toward the nucleus. I thought it was a very bvely place where tmaginalion enrered mi0 all of the thmgs rhar happened I look oack on my trme at Berkeley with nothing but enthusiasm. Ienjoyedassociations with a Gibson at the Bureau of Standards in Washington. They could not be the same could they? NO. He was also a wonderful oerson. Georqe Ernest Gibson was a man, in my opinion, comparable in intellect with Professor Lewis but less dedicated to qening - things - done. He lived h a happy world. He enjoyed life. Obvbusiv we could w on for hours on the research aspects of your very prestigious career as evidenced by your citations, but I should dike to investigate something more on the human side. Perhaps you yourself have a feeling for one or more of the areas to which you have contributed, ones that have possibly pleased yoimore or have been more productive than others. From Berkeley i went as an instructor to the University of Wisconsin. The second year there i worked with Farrington Daniels studying rates of chemical reactions. We did many experiments measuring the decomposition of N205in different solvents. This experience convertedme from a thermodynamicist to a confirmed kineticist. From Wisconsin I was mvided with the oooortunitv .. . to M, as a National Research Fellow to Berlin to work with Michael Poianyi in Haber's iaboratorv in the Kaiser Wiihelm institute in Berlin. These were also interesting and exciting times. About that time. London had wrinen a vefv excitins in which he - .oaDer . derived a formula for calculating the interaction energy between three and four atoms using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. No calculations of a potential surface were made but at least a foumjation was established. Polanyi and I immediately decided that it would be productive and most
-
Brasted:
Eyring:
-
-
-
Eyring:
-
Volume 53, Number 12, December 1976 / 753
-
interestinoto actuallv draw these wtenfialswfaces. Out of that work came e new approach to reaction kinetics. One couldsee what was haowning .. - in reectionrates, es~ecielly in isotopic effects. For different isotopes one cwldsee that the zero point enemy would change the rate of a reaction. befar,, /certainly was now. MI was r o t a wnfi&kineticist I m t o n from~wtentialsurfacesto Mestatistimlmechanical theory of reaction rates. I think you'd have to say that this work and the vistas it opened up colored my whole subsequent scientific c a r w . Brasid: Do yw feel that any o f y w r M h a s been infl~mncedinany wej by eithbrpolitical~ictsor government funding? Have you been directly or indirectly influenced to move in one direction or another according to funding? Eyring: M y own feeling is we have been tremen3ously well treated in the way of funding to do scientific research. Perhaps this view is colored by my own good fortune. I went back to m e l e v a s e lechner w e w afier the vear 19303 1mi in ~erli".The nee year Hugh Taylor i n v i e d m to Princiton. h spite of the depression I had every aobnhge in tha m a w of research support. Primton never had to cutwrsalaries. The success that I've had has been oreatly helped by ex&lent gvaduate studsms and by the emerQsnce of q&mm m h a n i c s at just Me r w t nwmant f a me. WM my interests and desire to pursue scientific concepts, it was natural for me to become involved in systematizing chemishy. New insighh emerge when the time is right. Brased: lbelieve ihatyouare far t w mDdest in what youare saying; however, at times, one does have to believe in the stars w bener that some Person is looking overyourshouM You, yourself, have suggested my nexi qusstion, Pmiavw Eyring, in pointing to the importance of graduate students in a professional career. Have vou ever develwed anv sense of confidence that when a young person comes to your doar andsays. "&. Eyring, l'dlike to work withyou", thatyoucan predict success. Have you ever been m g ? Eyring: 1don't think I've often been wrong in knowing which ones would do well and how well but i think I can miss predicting the detennination of a person. I would like to know how he'll follow up and how much courage he has to go ahead with things when it's not easy sailing. 1ihink ihat it's these factws that I may have missedat times. I think I can teN whether e convematlon with s o m is quick in underrtandingh him. At the risk of redundancy, it's the qualify of character ihat really makes e man do well ornot do well and that I find difficult to predict w evaluate at an early siege. I'd say that some of the mastbrilliant shdents lknew who obviwslyhad great intellectualcapacify haven't done as wellas some of those that were not quite as brilliant but had intense dedications. Brasted: Do you feel that there has been any change in fhe qualify of training of our students as they come to w r institutions over the past decades? Evrino: Idon 't think students. or facultv for that maner. work as thev . used to. When I be&n my caieer, a six day w A k in the l e i oratory was expectfed lfindthatsfudents, es wellas fawhy, feel that Saturdays as wellas Sundays are days of "rest': Brasted: Perhaps even for a few long, long weekends! Eyring: That's right. 1think that there's a relaxed feeling that's come with affluence. Let me make it clear that bright p e o ~ l edo well now as ihey always have end somehow s e e i to be gening the work done. I don? ihink that there's anything catastrophic about the chnges. Ws, p e h p s , more a dlfference of emphasis. I've had excellent students in these days just as before. Brasted: As a Germanophile. I can? resist returning to your Berlin experiences. h Me early thirtk, thsre m i h a v e besn mud, more to your previously described London-Eyring experiences. Eyring: In the period from 1931-34, it became perfectly clear ihat one could f o m l a t e e verydefinite picture of reaction rates by using statistical mechanics. h 1933 Peker and Wigner,
-
754 / Journal of ChemicalEducation
using Me Ey~/nspolanyiporential sfbface, calculated Me rate of Me reaction H &(para) = HdmYw) H. By 1934 if was clear to me that for any molecular transformationinvolving a potential barrier providing a cross section of no retum, ihat the rate of crossing the barrier at equilibrium was also the rate away from equilibrium since deleting Me back reaction did not perturb the fwward reaction. The deveQment of this picture, of the activated complex, was made easier by the thermodynamics I learnedat Berkeley and the kinetics that /hadlearnedinBerlin. 1woteapaperin 1935 whichlthink has been very influential on our total understanding of the activated complex. Our earlier discussion of "time andcircumstances" is again evldent. This paper was sent in late because I was in en automobile accident. M y leg and knee were broken in some thirteen places. M y enforced leisure gave me more time to put in on this paper. A more finished ~ u m e n t r e s u f i e j s omaf it wasas finishede paperas lhave ever wriiten-strictly again by an accident (in the truest meaning of ihe word). Urey was then Editor of the Journal of Chemical Physics. Hesentit toareviewer who was sure it was inmr.%t. He reiumed it wim a long critique saying how it couldn't be true. If I'd been younger, /guess I would have been crushed by this review. Actually Hugh TeylwendEugene Wigner, a famous Nobel Laureate whom I had known in Berlin anda man who himself wiih Pelzer had contributed a calculation of the rate of 3 hydrogen reactions which was beautiful, upheld the paper. It would be hard to find e more competent reinforcement. There is e lesson here in ihat if one believes in one's judgment, one goes ahead. Criticism is notgoing m h i v w ifyou are r W . lfyou're re, pm* certainlydoesn'thelpeiWmr. lthink therear. veryeblepeople who cease to perform because of criticsm. As I recall. Newton was verydisturbed by that fact that Hook was such a severe critic. At times. Newton furnedaway from science end, as a matierof fact, in his lateryaan didoihsrthings than science. The greatest people can apparently sometimes be too sensitive. Brested: Biochemical systems or physiological systems have been an important part o f y w r research in these recent years. b there a story here? EWm: Yes, 1ihink so. n's mastly because if mugM my interesiswne years ego but there's also a human interest story inwlved At phicefon just befare the Semnd Wwid Warstartea I was in the office of Professor Newton Harvey, m d of ihe Department of Biology. Remember this was just before our entering World War 11. He was part of a research project on the effect of exireme pain andshock in the human system. Animal studies were involved whwein iremendous stresses were applied to the animal. It was evia,nt Unt we &need to understand this stress part of physiology if we were to understand the physiological end psychological effects on wounded men. A cooperative effori developed in a most unusual way with Professor Frank Johnson who had been working on luminescence. In e sense. Harvey was the "Dean" of luminescent phenomena. To appreciate my involvement, letS look at the problem in e linle more detail. Whenyou take luminescent bactwis endsdrdy Me specbwn, there is a maximum exhibited. There is no light at ice tern pwattre. At body tempmture, Me luminescence diminishsd felt that but there is a maximum in behveen. M y colleeg~~es this was understandablebut other interesting experimenh had been prfwmed in which pressures had been placed on the systsm up to 200 arm in the low temperature range, Under this pressure, there was less light. in the high tern perature range, there was more light. Professor Harvey, in his direct way said, "/don't minda thing giving off more or less li*, but why doesn't it make up hs mind'? This is where I was brought in. He pointedout my claim tobeinga reaction kineticist. What was my explanation?I didn'i like to s w s t ihe obvious but most anyone wwldarive at my conclusion. The reaction rate responds to an equilibrium; if you derive less light it is because the pressure literally diminished the
+
+
actlvatmi state. Contrariwise. ifyou observed more light, It was because the presswe innaased the actlvatmistste. The nextsteo was easv. . h .producing the activatedstate in a low temperature region, you had a volume increase. while in mino into the aciivated state and in the high temperature region, you had a volume decrease. It seemed logical that since the activated state was probably the same in either case, a molecule must be Involved in unfolding. It would occwv . . more space in the high temperahre range. With this modest beginning on the pressure sensitive system related to wounds, a whole research program developed thar has gone on through the years. Also it's resulted in hvo volumes co-authored with Frank Johnson, another excitmg human being in the science field. This is Me way I developed my Interest in b,bh?gicalphernnena. We have minen tm,books on Biology, the most recent one is "The Kinetic Base of Reaction Rates in Biology and Medc1ne"and so I would say that I have been very much intrigued by biological questions. Brasted: We could pwsue your many scientific areas beyond our space and time limitations. May i change to a somewhat d m f but equaily importlnt a m ? Y w cany a very unique and important responsibiliiy in you relgious failh, h.Eying. Have these responsibilities hada bearing oran influence on your professional life? Have there been sacrifices h time or energy? Eyring: Those are very interesting questions. Ceriainly the religious aspects hada great deal to do with my leaving Princeton to go to the Uniyersifv of Utah. My first wife was a native of Utah and we were anxious that ow swrs many in the Mwmwr faith. I was indeed heavily influenced by my wife's feelings on this decision to leave. There is an interestinghuman story if we can take a minufe for it. Women are very interesting. They state that men are smatter than they are. When President Olpin of Utah made the offer as Dean of Mnes or of the Graduate S c h l of the University of Utah, my wife, Mildred, kffthetkdsciuptome. DeepdownlknowthatsheihOq5t the cards were stackedin favor of our leaving for Utah and haddecidedthatl wouldgo. On the oitmr handas lobserved the change, it meant that I wouldhave to start the Graduate Program at Utah from the very beginning. They had at the time a sfmng Master's F m p m but had no rare than statted the PhD. I was in a most favorableposition at Princeton. My salary was very satisfactory. 1had nine @graduate st* dents who wrformed outstandingscientific work. 1fherefore dectded a&insl the move. Site she had said that she warned me to decide, I mote my kner of regets to Urah The nexf day she asked me what 1had decided and i replied that I had decided lhal we shouldn't go. She was crushed. She said /in@but wrote a note to me~andaskedme not to read it until Igot to my laboratoryat the University. ican't repeat it verbatimbufshe implied that she hadiived in exile, away horn lltah, fofnineteenyears. She wwM. of cause, continue if it was necessary but she said that she hadnever been so disappointed in any decision in her life. Of course I hadachylly been on ttm edge of making the move a n d k n o t e was decisive. The challenge of returning to Utah and to a new environment academically, buiidlng up a program. was exciting. I contacted Professor Hugh Taylor, the Department Headat Princeton. and tohi him of mv chanw in Dians. We was were, of wmse, &good friendsandhe i&lied&the aware of the possibiiiiy of my change of heart. He didpoint out several obvious faciors. Princeton hadmore money than the University of Utah. I said I understood that andeven the offer of a spaciaIProfessorship didnot changs my mind. He asked for permission to talk to my wife abouf the situation which, of course, was more than agreeable to me. This he did, telling her that I was making a sacrifce: t b t as UIe years went on. I'd be tremendouslydisappointedasa person who did research wellandadministration badly. He implied that I would eventrraily endup being quite unhappy. Her response was that she'dtake that chance. ActuaNyithas all tumedouf
tremendously well. I was already established so that I got research money the same as I would have gonen at Princeton. I was ablereally to go wifhout any disadvantages. We did set up a strong .pmgram at the University of Utah. I am sure many have interpreted my action as one of greatpersonal sacrifice. i thlnk thar ihat would be the wrong pichne. I was very active in our church at Princeton. I was head of the congrqation of a college branch there foftweive years. Thus we were Indeed very active churchwise there and I certainly have not been less so here. ideserve no creditas a person who makes great sacrifices. I always do the kind of things that I like to do. I too have come horn a home h which I was strongly hfluenced by religious beliefs. I have shong feelings on our responsibllities~steachers in the moral sector of and in human relations. Couldy o u p v i d e some ofyour own feeiings? I'd like to talk about that. With my devoutly reiigious feelin~s, I know I am never alone in the world. 1think you could not describe my feeling in any other way. I'm convinced that this life is meaningful and that it wouldn't make sense wifhout a contlnootionaffer death. For me, iiie idea of living again is a real&. This feeling of not being alone gives meaning to life. i feel that there will eventually be justice. This belief allows undersfandinu of the . qaiianh. of men who, for instance, stay at their posts in time of disaster such as when a ship is sinklng. Or those who help lift the burdens of other people at great sacrifice. This aspect of life has a meaning that I think transcends every other kind of meaning. I try to live up to my ideab and even though I fall at times, I tremendously admire those around us who have this sense of dUy, in the vastness of the universe weare notalone but are really hm4ing to a H i g h P o w . Religon is a living, real thing for me. i don't see how it is possible to be happy without it. The idea that one is a brother to one's neighbor and the obligation that we have to /iff the burdens of those aroundus, is more important than material things. Happiness is more a fundion of wafhWileness than the posseSSion of material things. I interpret your belief then in a sense that as teachers we have a wrique responsibilifvandan oppatunifv of iransmining wrphiiosophyof life orat least to hope that some of this rubs off. I know that for your studenb this has happened. l h o w that that's true and I h o ~ that e we can always behave honorably. We shouldact as though we thought that life had meanina hooinu that this aititude wilireflecf in the lives of our students. i y o u don't have honor, then you don't have anything. We've worked ourselves into the "science versus religion" baitleground i gather that you really feel that there is no "versus". No. I think that they are of one piece. i enjoyed very much the symposium in which you were honwedin this CentenniaiMeeting of the American Chemical Societyas a '@ant of education". At the risk of stereotyping guestions. I would like to pose one that 1have eiiciied from all o w "giants" that have been pad of the impact Series. Suppose we could again imagine being twenty-one years of age with a new Bachelor's LJegree, either in engineering or chemistry in your case. Can you think of anything you might do differently now than y w dia' then? Wwld it perhaps be in a new field? I wouldn'tknow how to so back and do things . any . differently than I did before. That's the pitiful thing because one thinks that one has learnedsomething. I think the stumbling along that I've described in choosing a profession had a broadening effect that was quite worth what It cost. Mone is asking what career opportunities are there now as distinguished from then, Ido have some ihOq5h. l f y w do the job well, itm vefy best y w can, the oppottuniiies will open up. I never have had anv very definite .goals other than to do whatever job l was do& t i ttm best i f myability I've always had the feeling ihat ~
- -
Brasted:
Eying:
-
-
-
-
Brastmi:
Brastmi:
Eyring: Brasted:
Eyring:
-
Volume 53,Number 12, December 1976 / 755
if I did that well. I would somehow m d e through as the English are famous for saying. The best advice I couldgive toyoungm!ewouMbejustth&-&thebestyarcan with whaty& have about you. The future will take care ofitself. Thereare hundreds of ways that you can have happiness in the world and each of them are good if you really do your best. Some people are great dreamers. They look far into the future and make long term plans. I don't think I've ever been that way. Brasted: This is the first time in an interview that we've conducted that we've had the great pleasure of the wife of o w interviewee beino nearbv. Mrs. Evrino, thromhout the interview . you've been mostpatient. May I take the libaiiyofaskingyou for some of your opinions? When Professor Eyring said that he put in at least six days a week, Iread into your expression that that was ~robablvno understatement. Does being the wire of a pre&gious and one of the most outstanding scientists in the world place a special burden or perhaps a special privilege on you? Mrs. Eydng: 1 don't feel it's been a burden on me. I think the burden is on my hwbandand the only feeling that I have is Unt I don't see him often enough. Brasted: That I think is what l meant by the term burden. Mrs. Eyrng: Even though he spends this large fraction of time at school, when he comes home he still doesnr relax. Alter dnner he 'iigo into the living mom andagain be back into his bwks so itknotreallylimitedtosixdeysa weeka-anygiw hourly basis. it's ten and twelve hours a day. Sunday, of course, is spent completely in the church. He has a lot of dedication. When we plan to go somewhere, there's a l w the primary objective of givinga talk or a seminar or a colloquium. We went to Europe some four years ago and the time was spent completely in lecturing and consultations. Of course igot to see the sights a bit but I FeelI'd like to be with my husband. When he's givinga lectue, I like to be there although it is Greek to me. i am actually beginning to learn something of the language, however. Brasted: it might be that some kinetics have rubbedoff on you. Ms. Eyring: That's possible. BBut it's not reallya bwden because wib3n he's home, we can talk. If there are any problems, I cm discuss them with him. I call himmany times during the day andhe always sounds like it's a great pleaswe for him to be disturbed So it's really not a burden-it just gets a little lonely. Brasted: I'm sure it does. Your very attractive accent suggests that you're not a native "Utahan". Mrs. Evrinq: No. I was bom in Scotiand. Myparenh were Irish. Then I went to Australia and lived thefa for ten years. It was there that I joined the Mormon church. Brasted: IX. Eyring or Mrs. Eyring or both, do you feel that theatmosphere in the home, the combination ofboth your faith and science has hada bearing on the developmnt of the childien in the home? Would you care to comment on whether this has had any bearing or influence on the lives of your children? spoken ofquickly. In 1969 Eyrir&: % reI@iwseffect I think &be aN three of my sons were Bishops in the Momwn Church. AX of them also had their Bachelor's L%gees in Physics. One of the sons went on for his PhD in Chemishy. He now heads the Deoartment of the University of Utah of which I am a member, although I report to the Dean of Sciences. The secondone, after a period in the Air Force, went on to Harvardand t& his Doctor's Degree in Business. He then went on to the business schwl Facuiiy at Stenfordand is now Head of the church college in southern Idaho. Rexburg College. The thirdson took degrees in MathematicsandPhysics. He has his Juris Doctor in Law from Columbia. He is now Assistant Commissioner of Hiqher Education for the state of Utah. Thus all three of them should be characterized as
-
-
~
-
756 / Journal of ChemicalEducation
~
deeply religious buf also very active in academic things. I would think that the kind oftraining that they had in the hwne kept them from making some of the mistakes that giFted people sometimes make when they try their wings, not inFrequentlygetting off into nonpmductive activities. So to me, of course, there is no question that the religious upbringing has given meaningfulness to life and a seriousness that is very helpful. My wife and I have four daughters also. They are religious andactive and we've had none of the problems that have beset some homes. Two are marriedandsettied down with fine men. One of them Is a Mormon missionary in Arkansas anda veryactive churchmember. Our youngest is a junior who will finish next yearat the University of Utah in English. The c h m h influence has savedus, at least in our opinion, from the kinds of problems that might otherwise have been encountered with people searching for their identity, not knowing quite what to do and making serious mistakes. To have homes where families are close together and where they feel like the honor and imporknce of family is paramount and the idea that the family goes on not only here but in the hereafter, is a tremendouslypowerhrlforce. For us, my verygoodandloyal wife and ourchildren,religion is a matter of great impwtance, leading to the blending of a formal education with religious beliefs. The importance of the individual and the fanilly is paramount. Brasted: Professor Eyring, since this is the time of our Centennial Celebrationofthe American Chemical Society, we've been listening to a variety of crystal gazers, those who make predictions for the nexi hundred years. I'd like to conclude our interviewby givingyw an oppottuniiy to use your crystal ball, not necessarily forthe next hundredyears butperhaps for the next decade or two. Are there unexplored areas of kinetics or biochemistry or other Fields in your current research intwests with m a w unsolvedproblems?Are stodents being trahedadequately to attack them? Eying: I've been fremendwsly impressed, as i'm s u e y w have been and many people have been with the great advances that have been made in the treating of cancer. For example, by using very intense radiation and by its combination with chemothsmpy, and Fifindng that if youget drugs that compete with substrates, you may actually stop suchgrowth. I fwsee. as I'm sure we all do, that we're going to understand the pathways in metabolism well enough in the near future to attack the differences inherent in a cancer celi; i join with many people who are very knowledgeable in this area in believing that by the end of the century we can cut the Fatalities of cancer by a third. Certainly we have here then a very interestingand exciting development in medicine, biochemistry, and biology. i suppose we aN have "solutions" to the fuelproblem. My main concern is that we'll make serious mistakes and bad compromises with those who have the fuel and maybe even weaken ourselves and lose our ability to chwse the path fhat we want to follow. So to speak, we can easily trade our birthright for a mess of pottage. If such can be avoid& I feel we willsurmount our diffrcuities with respect to power and fuel. i have great faith in the ingenuity of the human mindand its ability to solve the problems that lie aheadofus. I hope that it can be done with due regard to the preciousness of human life and that we find ways of doing these things in the spirit that aN men are brofhen. Certainly tha unborn have rights. We can finda way without losing ow ethicalsense in combatting these dangers of living on this spaceship with its limited opportunitiesand with its limitations with regards to the things that we believe. I'm an optimistandlbelieve that we can do it. I look forward to a happy time for my descendants with no insurmountable obstacles in their paths. Brasted: This s e e m to be a verypmper way to close this interview. You and Mrs. Eyring have been most gracious.
