Irving Langmuir Quotes

Irving Langmuir was an American chemist, physicist, and engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry.

Langmuir's most famous publication is the 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his "concentric theory of atomic structure". Langmuir became embroiled in a priority dispute with Lewis over this work; Langmuir's presentation skills were largely responsible for the popularization of the theory, although the credit for the theory itself belongs mostly to Lewis. While at General Electric from 1909 to 1950, Langmuir advanced several fields of physics and chemistry, invented the gas-filled incandescent lamp and the hydrogen welding technique. The Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research near Socorro, New Mexico, was named in his honor, as was the American Chemical Society journal for surface science called Langmuir. Wikipedia

✵ 31. January 1881 – 16. August 1957

Works

Pathological Science

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir: 2 quotes 1 like

Irving Langmuir Quotes

“To me, [it's] extremely interesting that men, perfectly honest, enthusiastic over their work, can so completely fool themselves.”

Irving Langmuir Pathological Science

1953 talk, transcribed in: [Irving Langmuir, 1989, October, Pathological Science, Physics Today, 42, 36-48]

Men , Fools

“In general, the rate of evaporation (m) of a substance in a high vacuum is related to the pressure (p) of the saturated vapor by the equation m=\sqrt{\frac{M}{2\pi RT}}p. Red phosphorus and some other substances probably form exceptions to this rule.”

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir, "The Constitution and Fundamental Properties of Solids and Liquids. Part I. Solids.", Journal of the American Chemical Society, September 5, 1916