DANIELS, FARRINGTON

(b. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 8 March 1889; d. Madison, Wisconsin, 23 June 1972)

physical chemistry.

Daniels’ career in physical chemistry was highly visible during the middle of the twentieth century and encompassed major contributions to teaching and research, including work on electrochemistry, chemical kinetics, nitrogen fixation, nuclear energy, thermoluminescence, solar energy, and the social impact of science. His active career was closely associated with the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Daniels was the son of Franc Burchard Daniels, superintendent of an American Express office, and Florence Louise Farrington Daniels, both eighth-generation descendants of English settlers who had mostly been successful in the world of business. He studied chemistry at the University of Minnesota, where he earned the B.S. in 1910 and the M.S. a year later. His Ph.D. was completed in 1914 at Harvard, where he studied the electrochemistry of thallium amalgams in the laboratory of Theodore William Richards. Since the outbreak of World War I prevented him from accepting a postdoctoral fellowship in Fritz Haber’s laboratory in Berlin. Daniels took an instructorship at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1914–1917) and was later assistant professor (1917–1918). During American participation in the war he spent a year with the Chemical Warfare Service, seeking a way to prevent fogging of the lenses in gas masks while they were being worn. On 15 September 1917, Daniels married Olive Miriam Bell; they had two sons and two daughters.

When the war ended. Daniels spent a year (1919–1920) at the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory in Washington. In 1920 he accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Wisconsin, where he rapidly gained recognition as a leading physical chemist, becoming full professor in 1928. He pursued the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen for more than two decades, at first in connection with the properties and reactions of oxides of nitrogen, particularly the kinetics of such reactions. By 1940 Daniels was deeply involved in developing a heat-exchange process for preparing nitric oxide from air as an alternative to the uneconomic electric-arc process for preparing nitric acid and nitrates. However, the Wisconsin process failed to become competitive with the well-established Haber process and was ultimately abandoned after some pilot plant trials.

Before 1944, Daniels became involved in wartime research involving the kinetics of rocket propulsion, and on the detection of oil films left on water surfaces by submarines, using luminescence caused by exposure to ultraviolet light. These studies were abandoned after he was called to the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago to direct the research being pursued toward understanding the chemical isotopes related to the development of the first atomic bombs (1945–1946). He remained as director of the laboratory after the war ended, when the activity was moved outside Chicago to become the Argonne National Laboratory of the new AtomicEnergy Commission.

Daniels now sought to direct the laboratory’s research toward planning and design of a power-producing nuclear reactor. The AEC, however, soon decided to slow down development of a power reactor and concentrate more intensively on development of nuclear energy for military purposes. At this point Daniels resigned his position and resumed his work at Wisconsin.

Daniels’ renewed research program now focused on a survey of resources of fissionable minerals by use of thermoluminescence as an analytical tool. After these studies revealed that resources of uranium ores were clearly limited, he lost faith in placing major emphasis on development of power-producing reactors. He now became an enthusiast for developing techniques and programs for utilization of solar energy, particularly in underdeveloped nations. The last two decades of his life were devoted to research on and promotion of solar energy as the principal energy source of the future. Daniels traveled extensively around the world, particularly after retirement from Wisconsin, to develop interest in solar energy and to encourage research and development in India, Mexico, and elsewhere. He also published extensively on the subject.

Daniels was more than a dedicated research scientist, however, and contributed greatly to teaching and administration. Besides his management duties at the Metallurgical Laboratory, he served for seven years (1952–1959) as chairman of the Wisconsin chemistry department, during a period of rapid increase in the number of students and faculty, when there was a need for planning expansion of the physical plant.

In spite of many diversions Daniels remained a dedicated teacher who was constantly striving to strengthen scientific instruction, not only with regard to his own classroom performance but also with respect to content and methodology in the profession. He was author of a laboratory manual and a leading textbook of physical chemistry. Because of dissat isfaction with his own limitations in advanced math ematics, he introduced a course in mathematical preparation for physical chemistry and developed a textbook for the course. He later made the course obsolete by persuading his colleagues to incorporate a calculus requirement into the chemistry major. Daniels was also influential in adding new faculty members with a strong mathematical background.

While he was chairman of his college’s Curriculum Committee in 1939, Daniels’ leadership resulted in three innovations that greatly improved the breadth of curricular offerings in the university: (1) the Freshman Forum, which introduced students to various fields of learning and gave them a greater appreciation of the of nature college education as well as of various ideas awaiting exploration; (2) a history of science department to deal with the growth of scientific concepts and their impact; and (3) a course for seniors in contemporary trends, dealing with the impact of science and technology on world problems. All were implemented, the third only after war’s end, when Daniels returned to the campus and took an active part in the course.

Daniels was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1947. The American Chemical Society honored him with three of its most prestigious awards—the Willard Gibbs Medal (1955), the Priestley Medal (1957), and the James Flack Norris Award (1957). The University of Wisconsin awarded him an honorary Sc.D. in 1966. He also received honorary Sc.D. degrees from the Universities of Rhode Island (1956), Minnesota (1959), Dakar (1960), and Louisville (1964). He was president of the American Chemical Society in 1953 and also served as president of the Geochemical Society in 1958, the Solar Energy Research Society in 1964 and 1965, and Sigma Xi in 1965, and as vice president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1959 to 1961.

Daniels was outwardly humble but possessed an inner confidence that caused him constantly to undertake difficult tasks. He was deeply religious and had a passion for social improvement. Daniels possessed a compulsive drive coupled with tireless energy that enabled him to pursue a multitude of goals that frequently had social as well as scientific objectives. An optimist by nature, he was rarely deterred by failure but quickly turned to alternative hypotheses and goals. He remained active until a few months before his death, which was caused by an inoperable cancer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Daniels was the author of approximately 300 publications, including seven books, two of them—Experimental Physical Chemistry and a physical chemistry textbook—updated through seven editions with the aid of faculty colleagues. Theseventh edition of the textbook was titled Outlines of Physical Chemistry, by F. H. Getman and Farrington Daniels (New York, 1943). The eighth edition was published by Daniels alone under the same title. In 1955 Daniels and Robert A. Alberty published the first edition of Physical Chemistry. Daniels’ name continued to be associated with the book through the fifth edition in 1979.

The seventh edition of Experimental Physical Chemistry was published in 1970 under the authorship of F. Daniels, R. A. Alberty. J. W. Williams, Paul Bender, C. D. Cornwell, and John E. Harriman.

Daniels’ research papers were published primarily in the principal American Chemical Society periodicals. Papers on more general subjects were scattered widely. For a full list of his titles, see Olive Bell Daniels (below). His first book was Mathematical Preparation for Physical Chemistry (New York, 1928). Chemical Kinetics (Ithaca. N.Y., 1938) developed out of his semester at Cornell as George Fisher Baker nonresident lecturer in 1935. Challenge of Our Times, edited with Thomas M. Smith (Minneapolis. 1953), is a collection of lectures given by selected faculty in the early years of the Contemporary Trends course. His last book was Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy (New Haven, 1964). Daniels’ collected papers are in the University of Wisconsin Archives. Six bound volumes of collected reprints are in the archives and in the chemistry department library.

II. Secondary Literature. There are short biographies of Daniels in Current Biography (1965), 106–108; McGraw-Hill Modern Men of Science, I (New York, 1980). 126–127; W. Miles, ed., American Chemists and Chemical Engineers (Washington, D.C. 1976); and James C. Spaulding. “Our Sunlit Statesman; Prof, Farrington Daniels,” in Saturday Review, 4 April 1959, 66–67. See also Olive Bell Daniels. Farrinxton Daniels: Chemist and Prophet of the Solar Age (Madison, Wis., 1978)

Aaron J. Ihde