Theodore W. Richards (USA, 1868-1928)

             Richards was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on January 31, 1868. Richards was an artist known for land and seascape painting and his mother, Anna Matlack was well-known author and poet. In 1914, Richards was the first American scientist to win the Noble Prize in Chemistry, receiving the honor for his work on determination of atomic weights of Cesium, Cobalt, Iron, Nickel, Uranium and some twenty more of a large number of the chemical elements on periodic table. During his childhood, he traveled to England and France and because of that he was home educated by his mother until the age of fourteen. His scientific interests grew stronger when he was in England. .
             After his family returned to United States he enters Haverford College at the age of fourteen. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1885 there he pursued further education at Harvard University, where he spent his career. Richards spent twelve months in Germany where he studied under Victor Meyer who was a German Chemist and others. On his return to Harvard, he was appointed as an assistant in chemistry. In 1901, he successively became professor. In 1903, he became Chairman of the department of chemistry at Harvard and in 1912 he was appointed Erving Professor of Chemistry and director of Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory (Nobel Prize, 1914). .
             Richards's Scientifics work divided into five categories. These categories includes the study of "atomic weight, the investigation of various problems concerning chemical equilibrium, original work upon chemical thermodynamic both practical and theoretical, the study of various problems in electrochemistry, and finally both practical and theoretical work concerning the significance of atomic compressibility and the changes exhibited by atomic volumes under varying conditions " (National Academy of sciences, 11). Richards was the first American to be discovered the accurate determinations of atomic weights of a large number of chemical elements about twenty five of them, including those used to determine almost all other atomic weights.