Harold Clayton Urey Biography

Harold Clayton Urey

(Walkerton, Indiana, 1893-La Jolla, California, 1981) American chemist, pioneer in the application of isotope separation techniques, who was awarded the Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium (heavy isotope of hydrogen).He was also the author of a theory about the origin of life on Earth and other planets.

Harold Clayton Urey

After graduating in Zoology from the University of Montana in 1917 and working as a professor for two years at this university, Urey's fondness for chemistry led him to pursue a doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Berkeley in 1923.After researching with Borh on the theory of structure Atomic, he returned to the United States where he taught chemistry at Johns Hopkins University (1924-1929), Columbia University (1929-1945), the University of Chicago (1945-1952) and the University of San Diego, where He held the position of professor emeritus from 1970 to 1981.

During his teaching, Urey carried out numerous investigations: in 1932 he discovered the heavy isotope of hydrogen (deuterium) and then developed a procedure for obtaining water heavy, work for which he earned two more years t the Nobel Prize in Chemistry burns.

Due to the study and development of separation techniques for different radioactive isotopes, during World War II Urey was part of the project for the creation of the atomic bomb and later in the studies to obtain tritium necessary in the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb.At the end of the manufacturing, he was very active within the group of atomic scientists who advocated international control of the new energy source.

After conducting research on the oxygen-18 isotope, he developed a method to determine the temperature of the oceans during the most recent geological history (up to 180 million years).To do this, he had to determine the relative abundance of the elements on the earth's surface, the Sun and the stars.

Urey also starred in a series of hypotheses about the origin of the Earth and life.According to him, the Earth took place through a cold and continuous accretion of particles, while the life that originated on its surface must have developed in a reducing atmosphere.Based on his theories, the American chemist Stanley Ll.Miller developed a series of experiments on the synthesis of organic compounds from a reducing atmosphere proposed by Urey.