Harkins, William Draper

Fowkes, F. M. 1972. Harkins, William Draper. Dictionary of Scientific Biography 6 117-119. 

Harkins, The KWI] Harkins, William Draper The Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut fiir physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, Science 34 (1911), p. 595-597. 

G. B. Kaufmann, William Draper Harkins (1873-1951) a controversial and neglected American physical chemist , J. Chem. Educ., 1985, 62, 758-761. 

On Harkins, see R.S. Mulliken, William Draper Harkins, 1873-1951, Biographical Memoirs of Members of the National Aca-damy of Science 47 (1975) 49-81 and G. B. Kauffman, William Draper Harkins (1873-1951) A controversial and neglected physical chemist, Journal of Chemical Education 62 (1985) 758-761. In a letter to Bertram Boltwood of February 28, 1921, Rutherford described Harkins as moderately sound and a man of intelligence, but added that I wish he did more experimenting and spent less time in theorising and in endeavouring to cover every possible idea. Quoted in L. Badash (ed.), Rutherford and Boltwood Letters on Radioactivity (New Haven, 1969), 343. 

During his time in the United States, Frumkin not only gave lectures to the staff and students of the University of Wisconsin but also toured many other universities. In this way he met many important American scientists and actively discussed their work with them. For example, at the University of Chicago, he visited the Laboratory of William Draper Harkins (December 28, 1873-March 7,1951) and also met with Arthur Holly Compton (September 10, 1892-March 15, 1962). In Princeton, he discussed the polymerization of unsaturated compotmds with Hugh Stott Taylor (6 February 1890-17 April 1974) and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, he discussed the field of electrocapillary phenomena with Karl Ferdinand Herzfeld (February 24, 1892-June 3, 1978). In Philadelphia, he was delighted to meet George Borisovich Kistyakovsky (1900-1982), a chemist with Ukrainian-Jewish roots. 

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