Harold C. Urey: A Brief Biography

Harold C. Urey was an American Physicist. In 1893 on April 29th Urey was born in Walkerton, Indiana. He was a one of three children. His father Samuel Clayton Urey died when Harold was six. After that his mother remarried and had two more daughters. After high school Urey went and taught at a school in Indiana. Shortly after teaching in Indiana Urey then taught in Montana. During his time in Montana, Urey decided to attend the University of Montana. Urey graduated from the University of Montana in 1917 with a major in Zoology and an additional study in chemistry. After he graduated from the University of Montana, Urey worked in chemistry. This was during World War I and lead him into his future in chemistry instead of zoology. After World War I ended, Urey went back to the University of Montana. Here he taught chemistry for two years. Once he was done teaching chemistry at the University of Montana, Urey began his graduate study in Berkeley and the University of California. Urey received a doctorate degree for his calculations on gaseous molecules and his research on electron distribution in the energy levels of a hydrogen atom. Even though many of the necessary molecular properties weren’t known back then, Urey made good approximate values. After earning his doctorate and with the help of an …show more content…
By the end of the three years in 1939 Urey and his partners had created several methods for separating the more uncommon isotopes of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, sulfur, and nitrogen. This allowed the isotopes to be used in laboratory research. After this Urey wrote several papers on his methods of the separation of isotopes. Then at the start of World War II Urey was asked to assist the U.S government’s program to separate the uranium isotope^235 from the isotope of uranium^238 which is more abundant than the uranium isotope^235. This would be used in the atomic