HAROLD CLAYTON UREY
Director - War Research
"Project Y"
Columbia University - New York City
 Harold
Clayton Urey was born in Walkerton, Indiana, on April 29, 1893, as
the son of the Rev. Samuel Clayton Urey and Cora Rebecca Reinoehl, and
grandson of pioneers who settled in Indiana. His early education in
rural schools led to his graduation from high school in 1911 after which
he taught for three years in country schools. In 1914 he entered the University
of Montana and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology in
1917. He spent two years as a research chemist in industry before
returning to Montana as an instructor in Chemistry. In 1921 he entered
the University of California to work under Professor Lewis and he was
awarded the degree of Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1923. He spent the following
year in Copenhagen at Professor Niels
Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics as American-Scandinavian
Foundation Fellow to Denmark and on his return to the United States he
became an Associate in Chemistry at Johns
Hopkins University. In 1929 he was appointed Associate Professor in
Chemistry at Columbia University
and he became Professor in 1934; during the period 1940-1945 he was also
Director of War Research, Atomic Bomb Project, Columbia University. He
moved to the Institute for Nuclear Studies, University
of Chicago in 1945 as Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry
and became Martin A. Ryerson Professor in 1952. He was George Eastman
Visiting Professor, University of Oxford,
during 1956-1957 and in 1958 he took his present post as
Professor-at-Large, University of California.
Professor's Urey's early researches concerned the entropy of diatomic
gases and problems of atomic structure, absorption spectra and the
structure of molecules. In 1931 he devised a method for the
concentration of any possible heavy hydrogen isotopes by the fractional
distillation of liquid hydrogen: this led to the discovery of deuterium.
Together with the late Dr. E. W. Washburn, he evolved the electrolytic
method for the separation of hydrogen isotopes and he carried out
thorough investigations of their properties, in particular the vapour
pressure of hydrogen and deuterium, and the equilibrium constants of
exchange reactions. He later worked on the separation of uranium
isotopes and, more recently, he has been concerned with the measurement
of paleotemperatures, investigations into the origin of the planets, and
the chemical problems of the origin of the earth.
He is the author of the books Atoms, Molecules and Quanta (1930,
with A. E. Ruark), and The Planets (1952). He was editor of the Journal
of Chemical Physics during 1933-1940 and he has written numerous
papers on the structure of atoms and molecules, the discovery of heavy
hydrogen and its properties, separation of isotopes, measurement of
paleotemperatures and the origin of planets. These have been published
in many different chemical journals.
Professor Urey received the Willard Gibbs Medal (American Chemical
Society) in 1934; Davy Medal (Royal
Society, London), 1940; Franklin Medal, 1943; Medal for Merit, 1946;
Cordoza Award, 1954; Honor Scroll Award (American Institute of
Chemists), 1954; Joseph Priestley Award, 1955; Alexander Hamilton Award,
1961; and the J. Lawrence Smith Award ( National Academy of Sciences),
1962. He has received honorary Doctor of Science degrees of Montana, Princeton,
Newark, Columbia, Oxford, Washington and Lee, McMaster,
Yale, Indiana, Birmingham
Universities, and of the Universities of Athens, Durham, and
Saskatchewan; also honorary Doctor of Law degree from Wayne
University and the University of California. He is a member of many
of the more important scientific societies of the world, and is Honorary
Fellow of the Chemical Society (London), the National Institute of
Sciences of India and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel).
In 1926 he married Frieda Daum. They have three daughters and one son.
Harold Clayton Urey died in 1981
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