California Institute of Technology Pasadena
Gates and Crellin Laboratories of Chemistry Sept. 27, 1937
The American Chemical Society Award Committee
Gentlemen:
I recommend Dr. Lawrence Olin Brockway for the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry for 1938.
Dr. Brockway was born in Topeka, Kansas, on September 23, 1907, and is accordingly eligible for this Award for 1938 but not for succeeding years. He received the degrees of Bachelor of Science in 1929 and Master of Science in 1930 from the University of Nebraska, and of Doctor of Philosophy in 1933 from the California Institute of Technology. He served as Assistant and Teaching Fellow at the California Institute from 1930 to 1933, as Research Fellow from 1933 to 1935, and as Senior Fellow in Research from 1935 to 1937. He was granted a Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for 1937-8, and is at present working at the Dyson-Perrins Laboratory at Oxford University.
At the time that Brockway came to study at the California Institute (1930) the method of determining the structure of gas molecules by the diffraction of electron waves had just been discovered by Mark and Wierl. Brockway chose this field for his research, and began the design and construction of an electron diffraction apparatus. Despite the difficulties involved, he succeeded while still a graduate student in obtaining satisfactory electron diffraction photographs and in using them in the determination of the molecular structures of several interesting substances (see 2, 3, 4, 5 in the attached list of publications). He also carried out two successful investigations of the structure of crystals by x-ray methods (1, 6). After his appointment as Research Fellow he constructed a second electron diffraction apparatus of improved design. By use of this apparatus and with the aid of refined methods of interpretation of the photographs (9, 13) he and his collaborators have determined the structures of ninety-five inorganic and organic molecules (see list of publications) with an accuracy usually of about one percent in interatomic distances and a few degrees in bond angles. (This is over one-half of the total of about one hundred eighty molecules studied so far by all workers in the field.) The results have been very valuable in connection with the general problem of the correlation of molecular structure and the physical and chemical properties of substances (4, 15, 22, 23, 27).
The success of Brockway's electron diffraction work has been recognized by students and investigators who have come from abroad to do work in this field at the California Institute, including Dr. L. E. Sutton, Rockefeller Fellow from Oxford (1935-4), who now is carrying on similar work at Oxford Dr. H. O. Jenkins, Commonwealth Fellow from Oxford (1934-6); Drs. G. C. Hampson and H. D. Springall, Commonwealth Fellows from Oxford (1936-7); Dr. Charles Degard, C. R. B. Fellow from Liege (1936-7); and Dr. J. A. A. Ketelaar, Lecturer on Crystallography at the University of Leyden (Summer, 1937). From 1933 to 1937 Dr. Brockway was also assisted by five graduate students carrying on work for the doctorate under his direction. One of these, Dr. J. Y. Beach, was appointed National Research Fellow in 1936, and has constructed at Princeton University a duplicate of Brockway's apparatus.
On the experimental side Dr. Brockway is the most able, prolific, energetic, and promising young man with whom I have ever been associated. He also has unusual ability and training along theoretical lines (although in this field he is not comparable to Dr. E. Bright Wilson, Jr., whose theoretical ability is prodigious). Brockway has great interest in and enthusiasm for the field of structural chemistry, and I am confident that he will continue his important contributions and be a leader in research. I know of no man of his age whose research output during the last few years exceeds Brockway's or who has made a more important contribution to pure chemistry.
Respectfully yours,
Linus Pauling.
LP:mrl
September
27, 1937
