Willard F. Libby
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Willard Frank Libby
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1960
Born: 17 December 1908, Grand Valley, CO, USA
Died: 8 September 1980, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Prize motivation: “for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science”
Prize share: 1/1
Work
Carbon is a fundamental component in all living material. In nature there are two variants, or isotopes: carbon-12, which is stable, and carbon-14, which is radioactive. Carbon-14 forms in the atmosphere when acted upon by cosmic radiation and then deteriorates. When an organism dies and the supply of carbon from the atmosphere ceases, the content of carbon-14 declines through radioactive decay at a fixed rate. In 1949 Willard Libby developed a method for applying this to determine the age of fossils and archeological relics.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
