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Show ABSTRACT This study is a biography of the Mormon scientist Henry Eyring. It deals principally with Eyring's involvement in science and some with his role as a prominent Mormon. Eyring's ancestry and early life in Mexico and later in Arizona are discussed first and provide a basis for understanding his role in science and within Mormonism. The next section of the thesis deals with Eyring's university training and the factors which influenced him to undertake a serious study of reaction kinetics. The years at the University of Arizona, the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin, and the Haber Institute in Berlin played an important role in Eyring's scientific career. Perhaps the most exciting years for Eyring as a scientist came when he was at Princeton University from 1931 to l946. Here Eyring developed the theory of absolute reaction rates, a theory which is now an integral part of the study of modern chemistry. The theory supplied Eyring and collaborators with enough problems and applications for fifty years of extensive scientific research. From T946 to the present, Eyring has been at the University of Utah. Here he elaborated on his Princeton work and made other important scientific advances. His studies in liquid theory and optical rotary theory were developed extensively here. Eyring was Dean of the graduate school at Utah for twenty years and was responsible for the development of the graduate program, which has become one of the finest in the United States. |
