William O. Baker

Bill Baker rose from a bright graduate of Princeton to one of the most revered men in American science and industry. He retired as Chairman of the Board of AT T Bell Laboratories in 1980. He worked with Charles P. Smyth at Princeton on the dielectric properties of organic crystals. He joined Bell Laboratories in 1939, after he received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry, and quickly applied his deep knowledge of dielectrics to problems in polymer science. His solid state perspective on polymers helped Bell Labs to become the pre-eminent research center in the world in condensed matter materials science. 

While Bell Labs was not a producer of polymers, AT T was one of the largest users in the world. The basic approach was to know more than anyone about the materials that were used for telecommunications. The British company ICI synthesized crystalline polyethylene, but Bell Labs discovered how to properly process this material and what microscopic parameters were important, such as the molecular weight distribution. DuPont synthesized nylon, but Bell Labs discovered how to make it useful as a stable material for long-term use. Cellulose polymers were an old technology, but Bell Labs discovered new ways to process it that achieved remarkable new properties and uses. Baker was the genius behind the philosophy and much of the early work. He wanted to know the actual truth about materials and reached out to the very best scientists. Peter Debye was a regular visitor to Bell Labs during the Baker era. 

By 1949 Bill Baker was the Head of the High Polymer Research and Development Department. Another member of this department, Field H. Winslow (1916-2009), had joined Bell Labs in 1945, after a career on the Manhattan project. Winslow went on to become the Editor of the journal Macromolecules. While William O. Baker rapidly rose to be Vice President for Research in 1955, he never forgot his roots in polymer science, and helped it to grow into the premier research laboratory in the area in the world. He would frequently drop by my laboratory and discuss my research on the structure and dynamics of liquid and glassy polymers in detail. Not only did he know what I was doing, he had thought deeply about it (Fig. 5.11). 

Ott E (1943) Cellulose and eellulose derivatives. High Polymers, Volume V, Interscience Publishers, New York 

Burk RE, Grummit O (1943) The chemistry of large molecules. Interscience Publishers, New York 

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The properties of the Buna-S type rubber are highly dependent on the amount of styrene in the rubber. To determine properties, it is important to know how much styrene had been incorporated. William O. Baker of Bell Telephone Laboratories solved this problem by developing a procedure for determining the amount of styrene using the refractive index of a solution of the rubber. 

Maurice Huggins, Raymond Fuoss, Leslie Treloar, G. Stafford Whitby, Roelof Houwink, Walter Stockmayer, John Ferry, Bruno Zimm, Paul Doty, Richard Stein and William O. Baker. The number of stories that can be told about this period in the development of polymer science is very much larger than the page limit for this book. 

Fig. 5.11 William O. Baker (left) and Warren Mason discussing the viscoelastic properties of polymer solutions, (www.williamobaker.org)...

Yat-Chen Chou, William S. Adney, Stephen R. Decker, John O. Baker, Glenna Kunkel, David W. Templeton, and Michael . Himmel... 

Baker, George P., and Karen Wruck. (1991). Lessons from a middle market LBO The case of O. M. Scott. The Continental Bank Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. 4(1) 46-58. Williams, Brian. (1997). Storms past, Scotts finds seeds of change yield a blooming success. The Columbus Dispatch. Columbus, OH IH, 2H. 

Fig. 28. Distribution of the degree of polymerization of the 10th Baker-Williams fraction (middle fraction, Pw = 1500) of polystyrene sample Ti-Te-1, polymerized anionically in 1,2-dimethoxy-ethane at —48 °C PDC at 15 °C (O) and GPC, not corrected for spreading (strip method, A)...

Fig. 29. Integral distribution of the degree of polymerization for polystyrene sample 0/2 polymerized anionically in tetra-hydropyran at 0 "C, Pw = 1225) and Baker-Williams-pre-fractionated PDC at 15 °C (O) and Baker-Williams fractionation of this sample by Bohm J9) (+). The integral distribution obtained by Bohm is somewhat narrower than that obtained from PDC, because of some different Pw-values (aP = Pw(/ Uz, Bohm had probably taken Pn instead of Pw)...

The list of other individuals who contributed to the evolution of this book is long indeed. First, we would express our appreciation to the professors who contributed so much to our scientific education Professors Arnold Gilbert, M. L. Bryant, the late W. N. Pirkle and Alta Sproull, C. N. Jones, S. F. Clark, R. S. Drago (KWW) the late Dorothy Vaughn, the late David Marker, the late Calvin Vanderwerf, the late Ralph N. Adams, and Professors F. S. Rowland, A. Tulinsky, and William von E. Doering (RED) Professors R. O Connor, the late G. L. Baker, W. B. Cook, the late G. J. Hunt, the late A. E. Martell, and the late M. Passer (MLP) and Professors Richard Eisenberg, the late E Albert Cotton, the late John A. Osborn, and Dr. Jerry Unruh (GGS). 

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