Lipscomb, William Nunn

Lipscomb, William Nunn (lĭp`skəm), 1919–, American physical chemist, b. Cleveland, Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, 1946. A professor of chemistry at the Univ. of Minnesota and later at Harvard, his use of X-ray techniques to examine the structure of boron molecules led to new conclusions about the nature of chemical bonding in general. For his discoveries he was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

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Lipscomb, William Nunn 

Born Dec. 9, 1919, in Cleveland, Ohio. American chemist.

Lipscomb studied at the University of Kentucky and the California Institute of Technology. He was a professor at the University of Minnesota from 1950 to 1959, when he became a professor at Harvard University. He served as president of the American Crystallographic Association in 1955 and is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lipscomb’s principal works deal with the chemistry of boron hydrides. He developed the theory of three-centered bonds for the hydrides, and he worked out a topological theory that makes it possible to predict the structure of boron hydrides yet undiscovered.

Lipscomb received a Nobel Prize in 1976.