Edgar Bright Wilson

For the Tennessee politician, seeEdgar Bright Wilson (politician).

Edgar Bright Wilson
Born	(1908-12-18)December 18, 1908 Gallatin, Tennessee,United States
Died	July 12, 1992(1992-07-12)(aged 83) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Children	Kenneth Wilson
Awards	ACS Award in Pure Chemistry(1937) Peter Debye Award(1962) National Medal of Science(1975) Welch Award in Chemistry(1978) Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy(1978) Willard Gibbs Award(1979) Elliott Cresson Medal(1982)
Scientific career
Fields	Chemistry
Institutions	Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	Linus Pauling
Doctoral students	Dudley Herschbach Robert Karplus Ira N. Levine William H Miller Frank A. Weinhold

Edgar Bright Wilson Jr.(December 18, 1908 – July 12, 1992) was an American chemist.

Wilson was a prominent and accomplishedchemistand teacher, recipient of theNational Medal of Sciencein 1975,Guggenheim Fellowshipsin 1949 and 1970, theElliott Cresson Medalin 1982, and a number of honorary doctorates. He was a member of both theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences,theAmerican Philosophical Society,and the United StatesNational Academy of Sciences.He was also the Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus atHarvard University.One of his sons,Kenneth G. Wilson,was awarded theNobel Prizein physics in 1982. E. B. Wilson was a student and protégé of Nobel laureateLinus Paulingand was a coauthor with Pauling ofIntroduction to Quantum Mechanics,a graduate level textbook in Quantum Mechanics. Wilson was also the thesis advisor of Nobel laureateDudley Herschbach.Wilson was elected to the first class of the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Wilson made major contributions to the field ofmolecular spectroscopy.He developed the first rigorousquantum mechanicalHamiltonianin internal coordinates for a polyatomic molecule. He developed the theory of how rotational spectra are influenced by centrifugal distortion during rotation. He pioneered the use ofgroup theoryfor the analysis and simplification normal mode analysis, particularly for high symmetry molecules, such as benzene. In 1955, Wilson publishedMolecular Vibrationsalong with J.C. Decius and Paul C. Cross. Following the Second World War, Wilson was a pioneer in the application ofmicrowave spectroscopyto the determination of molecular structure. Wilson wrote an influential introductory textIntroduction to Scientific Researchthat provided an introduction of all the steps of scientific research, from defining a problem through the archival of data after publication.

Starting in 1997, theAmerican Chemical Societyhas annually awarded theE. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy,named in honor of Wilson.

Scientific career

Bright started his higher education atPrincetonin 1926, where he received both his bachelor's and master's degree in 1930 and 1931 respectively.He then went to theCalifornia Institute of Technologywhere he worked withLinus Paulingon crystal structure determinations and finished his PhD.During this time, he also wrote a textbook with Pauling, calledIntroduction to Quantum Mechanics,which was published in 1935.This textbook was still in print in the year 2000, some 70 years after its initial publication.

In 1934, Bright was elected to the Society of Fellows at Harvard for his work done at the California Institute of Technology.His election meant he had a 3-year junior fellowship at Harvard during which he studied molecular motion and symmetry analysis. In 1936 the Harvard Chemistry department appointed Bright as an assistant professor during his third year of his fellowship. He taught courses in chemistry and quantum mechanics and was promoted to an associate professor with tenure after three years.From 1934 to 1941, Bright, along with Harold Gershinowitz, constructed an automatic infrared spectrometer which was used to measure vibrational absorption spectra of various molecules.

After the start ofWorld War IIBright started research on explosives with theNational Defense Research Committee(NDRC) where he studied shock waves in water. In 1942 an Underwater Explosives Research Laboratory (UERL) was opened at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution which Bright led.The US navy, exasperated by the continual harassment of Nazi U-boats on allied shipping vessels had a strong interest in the UERL and its research with depth charges and other anti-submarine weapons. To facilitate this research, the laboratory acquired an old fishing vessel, theReliance,which was fitted to record electronic signals from pressure sensors deep underwater.

After the end of the war Bright returned to Harvard. In 1947 Bright and Richard Hughes invented and built a Stark-effect microwave spectrometer which could measure different radio waves and became an important tool in spectroscopy.From 1949 to 1950, Bright took a sabbatical in Oxford during which he mainly worked on his bookIntroduction to Scientific Researchwhich was published in 1952.

In 1952–1953, during the Korean War, Bright became the Research director and deputy director of the Weapons Evaluation Group (WSEG), where he only stayed for 18 months. He later began accepting assignments in the mid-1960's in Washington during the Vietnam war.

In 1955 Bright published a bookMolecular Vibrationsalong with co-authors J.C Decius and P.C. Cross which discussed infrared and Raman spectra of polyatomic molecules.In 1955 Bright studied the internal rotation of single bonds in molecules using microwave spectroscopy. In 1965 Bright studied the rotational energy transfer in inelastic molecular collisions. In 1970, Bright began to study hydrogen bonding and the structure of hydrogen bonds using low resolution microwave spectroscopy.

In 1979, Bright retired and was named an emeritus professor. The E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy was established in 1994 by the American Chemical Society.

Personal life

Wilson was born inGallatin, Tennesseeto mother Alma Lackey and fatherEdgar Bright Wilson,a lawyer. His family soon moved toYonkers, New York.

He was married to Emily Buckingham from 1935 until she died in 1954. He remarried to Therese Bremer in 1955, a distinguishedphotochemist.Wilson had a total of 4 sons and 2 daughters, one of whom wasKenneth Wilson,aNobel Laureatein physics.

In his final years, Wilson suffered from Parkinson's disease. He died on July 12, 1992, in Cambridge, Massachusetts of pneumonia.

External links

• Linus Pauling and E. Bright Wilson Jr., Introduction to Quantum Mechanics With Applications to Chemistry (1935).Introduction to Quantum Mechanics With Applications to Chemistry.Dover Books, New York.ISBN0-07-048960-2.
• E. Bright Wilson Jr. (1952).An Introduction to Scientific Research.McGraw-Hill, New York.ISBN0-486-66545-3.Wilson, Edgar Bright (January 1990).13-digit.Courier Corporation.ISBN978-0-486-66545-0.