When was Willard Libby born?

Willard Libby was born on 17 December 1908 in Grand Valley.

Where did Willard Libby study?

Willard Libby was educated at University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, Analy High School.

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Willard Libby

American physical chemist

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Willard Frank Libby (December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980) was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.

Quick facts

Born: 17 December 1908 wd
Place of birth: Grand Valley wd
Died: 8 September 1980 wd
Place of death: Los Angeles wd
Citizenship: United States wd
Occupation: chemist, university teacher wd
Education: University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, Analy High School wd
Spouse: Leona Woods wd

Awards wd

Guggenheim Fellowship (1941)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1960)
Arthur L. Day Medal (1961)
Elliott Cresson Medal (1957)
Willard Gibbs Award (1958)
Albert Einstein Award (1959)
American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal (1970)
Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry (1956)
Remsen Award (1955)
Golden Plate Award (1961)

About

A 1931 chemistry graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, from which he received his doctorate in 1933, he studied radioactive elements and developed sensitive Geiger counters to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. During World War II he worked in the Manhattan Project's Substitute Alloy Materials (SAM) Laboratories at Columbia University, developing the gaseous diffusion process for uranium enrichment.

After the war, Libby accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago's Institute for Nuclear Studies, where he developed the technique for dating organic compounds using carbon-14. He also discovered that tritium similarly could be used for dating water, and therefore wine. In 1950, he became a member of the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He was appointed a commissioner in 1954, becoming its sole scientist. He sided with Edward Teller on pursuing a crash program to develop the hydrogen bomb, participated in the Atoms for Peace program, and defended the administration's atmospheric nuclear testing.

Libby resigned from the AEC in 1959 to become professor of chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a position he held until his retirement in 1976. In 1962, he became the director of the University of California statewide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). He started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972, and as a member of the California Air Resources Board, he worked to develop and improve California's…

Questions

When was Willard Libby born?: Willard Libby was born on 17 December 1908 in Grand Valley.
Where did Willard Libby study?: Willard Libby was educated at University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, Analy High School.

Sources

Last updated 31 October 2026 · facts checked 7 November 2026

Cite this page

"Willard Libby". DigiNepal. Last updated 31 October 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/willard-libby. Retrieved 7 November 2026.

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Text from the Wikipedia article Willard Libby, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: Willard Libby in Lab.jpg — unknown, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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