Rumford Medal

J. W. Gibbs (letter of acceptance of the Rumford Medal, January 10, 1881) quoted in L. P. Wheeler, Josiah Willard Gibbs, The History of a Great Mind (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1962), p. 88. 

A great account of this story can be found in the citation by the Royal Society of London on the occasion of the awarding of the Rumford Medal to Louis Pasteur by the President, Lord Wrottesley, on December 1, 1856 Proc. Roy. Soc. London 1857, VII, 254- 257. The text of the citation and more about Pasteur can be found at http //www.foundersofscience.net/, a website created and hosted by Dr. David V. Cohn, Professor of Biochemistry, University of Louisville. 

During his career Debye was awarded the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society, London, the Franklin and Faraday Medals, the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Netherlands Academy, the Max Planck Medal (1950), the Willard Gibbs Medal (1949), the Nichols Medal (1961), the Kendall Award (Miami, 1957), and the Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society... 

He was given many awards and honors including Nichols Medal (1915 and 1920) Hughes Medal (1918) Rumford Medal (1921) Cannizzaro Prize (1925) Perkin Medal (1928) School of Mines Medal (Columbia University, 1929) Chardler Medal (1929) Willard Gibbs Medal (1930) Popular Science Monthly Award (1932) Franklin Medal and Holly Medal (1934) John Scott Award (1937) Modern Pioneer of Industry (1940) Faraday Medal (1944) and Mascart Medal (1950). He was a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and an honorary member of the British Institute of Metals and the Chemical Society (London). He served as president of the American Chemical Society and as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received over a dozen honorary degrees. 

In 1856, the Royal Society of London awarded the Rumford medal to Louis Pasteur for his then recent outstanding accomplishment in the study of Dissymetrie Moleculaire. The citation (1) afforded an explanation of the word dissymmetry that must have sounded strange at that time [two hemihedral forms] were dissymmetric, that is, could not be superposed on each other, but each could be superposed on the image of the other in a mirror. ... 

FVom a letter to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1881). The entire letter is quoted in [Rukeyser 1964, 262). In this letter Gibbs sends his regrets for not being able to attend the meeting to receive the prestigious Rumford medal. 

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