Samuel Parsons Mulliken

Background

Samuel P. Mulliken was born on December 19, 1864, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, one of the four children of Moses J. Mulliken and Sarah D. Gibbs. He was a descendant of Robert Mulliken, born 1666, who emigrated from Glasgow, Scotland, to Bradford, Massachusetts, where he married in 1687; his mother came from a Cape Cod family. He was named for his great-great-uncle on his paternal grandmother's side, Samuel Holden Parsons, who was a major-general in Washington's army.

In the line of Mullikens were watch- and clockmakers and captains of clipper ships. Samuel's father was a sea captain. His interest in chemistry was aroused early.

As boys Samuel and another future chemist, Arthur Amos Noyes, carried on experiments together in their home laboratories.

Education

Mulliken attended the Newburyport high school and later went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he only after serving two years in an apothecary's shop in Newburyport. He was graduated in 1887.

In 1890, he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leipzig.

Career

Mulliken then spent the academic year 1887 - 1888 at the University of Cincinnati, where he taught all kinds of chemistry. In the summer of 1888, four graduates of the Institute went to Europe together for advanced study - Mulliken, Noyes, Augustus H. Gill, another chemist, and Frederick Field Bullard, a musician. The three chemists finally settled in Leipzig, where they were soon joined by Henry P. Talbot.

Mulliken took his major work under the organic chemist Wislicenus, but he also worked with Ostwald in physical chemistry and listened to the lectures of Wundt in psychology. All four Americans received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leipzig in 1890.

Returning to America, Mulliken spent the year 1890 - 1891 as fellow in chemistry at the newly founded Clark University.

In 1891 - 1892 he was associate in chemistry at Bryn Mawr College but returned to Clark to serve as instructor in chemistry and head of the department for two years. Subsequently, he worked in the private laboratory of Oliver Wolcott Gibbs at Newport, Rhode Island.

From 1895 until his death in 1934 he was a member of the chemistry department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he, Noyes, Gill, and Talbot were colleagues for many years. Throughout that period Mulliken gave courses in organic chemistry, in the later years being in charge of the instruction in that subject. His lectures were sound but not spectacular. He guided innumerable students in their researches, and all were greatly aided both by his scholarship and by his sympathy. Early in his career, in 1896, he published in collaboration with Arthur A. Noyes a little book Laboratory Experiments on the Class Reactions of Organic Substances and Their Identification (3rd ed. , 1915). This was the first systematic work of its kind and met the need of many students and industrial chemists. Later he published a monumental work in four volumes, A Method for the Identification of Pure Organic Compounds by a Systematic Analytical Procedure Based on Physical Properties and Chemical Reactions (1904 - 1922). This was soon recognized as essential to every university and industrial chemical library. Eight years were consumed in the preparation of the first volume alone, and many of the younger collaborators who worked with him on this undertaking later became distinguished themselves.

During the First World War Mulliken was associated with the Chemical Warfare Service and held the rank of major. He was often called in as consultant in connection with the development of chemical processes. Except for one winter, Mulliken resided in Newburyport and commuted to Boston on the Boston & Maine Railroad, traveling in all, he estimated, more than a million miles. He loved the out-of-doors and found his recreation there, tramping along the Atlantic coast between Newburyport and Maine. On camping trips in the mountains, he would proceed at a steady pace with his pack on his back, never showing the excitement of his companions to get to the top, but always reaching there unexhausted and able to appreciate the view even more than if he had hurried. In the summer of 1934 Mulliken suffered an attack of rheumatic fever; during an apparently satisfactory convalescence he died on October 24, 1934.

Achievements

• Samuel Parsons Mulliken was a chemist and pioneer in organic qualitative analysis, who spent most of his career researching, teaching, and writing books about organic qual at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Personality

Samuel P. Mulliken was an unassuming and rather diffident man.

Connections

On June 27, 1893, Samuel P. Mulliken married Katherine W. Mulliken, whose original ancestor in America was the same as his own. They had three children - Robert, Katherine, and Samuel.

Father:

Moses Johnatan Mulliken

Mother:

Sarah Delia Mulliken (Gibbs)

Wife:

Katherine W. Mulliken (Mulliken)

Daughter:

Katherine Mulliken

colleague:

Henry P. Talbot

Henry P. Talbot was an American chemist.

colleague:

Augustus H. Gill

Augustus H. Gill was an American chemist.

colleague:

William Albert Noyes

William Albert Noyes was an American analytical and organic chemist.

Son:

Samuel Mulliken

Son:

Robert Sanderson Mulliken

Robert Sanderson Mulliken was an American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules.