Jacob Bigeleisen
Jacob Bigeleisen | |
|---|---|
Bigeleisen in 1964 | |
| Born | Jacob Bigeleisen May 2, 1919 Paterson, New Jersey, US |
| Died | August 7, 2010 (aged 91) |
| Alma mater | New York University (AB 1939) Washington State College (MS 1941) University of California, Berkeley (PhD 1943) |
| Known for | Bigeleisen-Mayer equation |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1974), WSU Regents' Distinguished Alumnus Award (1983), American Chemical Society Award for Nuclear Applications in Chemistry, E.O. Lawrence Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Institutions | Columbia University Ohio State University University of Chicago Brookhaven National Laboratory University of Rochester State University at Stony Brook |
Jacob Bigeleisen (pronounced BEEG-a-lie-zen; May 2, 1919 – August 7, 2010) was an American chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project on techniques to extract uranium-235 from uranium ore, an isotope that can sustain nuclear fission and would be used in developing an atomic bomb but that is less than 1% of naturally occurring uranium. While the method of using photochemistry that Bigeleisen used as an approach was not successful in isolating useful quantities of uranium-235 for the war effort, it did lead to the development of isotope chemistry, which takes advantage of the ways that different isotopes of an element interact to form chemical bonds.