Background
Inghram, Mark Gordon was born on November 13, 1919 in Livingston, Montana, United States. Son of Mark Gordon and Luella Gallagher (McNay) Inghram.
Inghram, Mark Gordon was born on November 13, 1919 in Livingston, Montana, United States. Son of Mark Gordon and Luella Gallagher (McNay) Inghram.
Bachelor, Olivet College, 1939; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Chicago, 1947.
He did undergraduate work at Olivet College, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1939. He worked in the Manhattan Project during World World War II and at Argonne National Laboratories from 1945 to 1947. He began teaching at the University of Chicago as an instructor in 1947 and remained there until his retirement in 1985.
He died at his home in Holland, Michigan in 2003.
Together with Clair Patterson and George Tilton, Inghram was one of the first scientists to combine measurements on meteorites and the Earth to find the age of the Earth. Over time, the decay of uranium to lead will change the isotopic makeup of terrestrial lead.
Patterson, Tilton and Inghram assumed that iron meteorites, which contain lead but virtually no uranium, formed at the same time as the Earth. Assuming this to be true, the isotopic makeup of lead in iron meteorites should still be the same as that of the newly formed Earth, so the Earth can be dated by comparing the composition of lead in iron meteorites with that in new volcanic material on the Earth.
Patterson, Tilton and Inghram did this and found that the Earth was approximately 4.5 billion years old.
Fellow American Physical Society, American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member National Academy of Sciences (J. Lawrence Smith medal 1957), American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Married Evelyn Mae Dyckman, May 12, 1946. Children: Cheryl Ann, Mark Gordon III.