SCIENCE INDEX 2000 2001 2002 Chemistry

Centennial celebration marks Noyes Lab as a National Chemical Landmark

Jim Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor
(217) 244-1073;kloeppel@uiuc.edu

9/6/02

Courtesy UI Archives Chemistry laboratory in Noyes, late 1800s-early 1900s.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The centennial celebration of the construction of Noyes Laboratory will take place Sept. 13-14. The symposium will feature public talks and a dedication ceremony recognizing the laboratory as a National Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society.

Built in 1902, Noyes Laboratory was the largest single chemical laboratory in the world, and the first interdisciplinary research institute in chemistry. The invention of the aerosol can, the discovery of the first synthetic sweetener and the development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy as a chemical tool were made at Noyes Laboratory.

Courtesy UI Archives Chemistry laboratory in Noyes in 1915.

"More than 20,000 chemists, biochemists and chemical engineers have passed through the portals of Noyes Laboratory on their way to careers in science," said Thomas Rauchfuss, director of the School of Chemical Sciences. "This total is larger than that produced by any other institution in the United States."

Ten Nobel Prize-winners and the first African American to receive a doctorate in chemistry are among those who have worked or studied in Noyes Laboratory. More than 300 faculty members have performed research in Noyes Laboratory.

Courtesy Fisk University Archives Illinois alumnus St. Elmo Brady, the first African American to recieve a doctorate in chemistry.

"In dedicating Noyes Laboratory as a National Chemical Landmark, we honor all the students, staff and faculty members who have worked in it," Rauchfuss said. "It is the people who worked in Noyes Laboratory – who either made the discoveries that contributed to the advancement of science or supported those who did so – who are being honored by this dedication."

Nobelist Rudolph Marcus will present a lecture of reminiscence of his years at Illinois at 11 a.m. Friday in Room 100 of Noyes Laboratory. He also will comment on his current research on the earliest solids in the universe.

On Friday at 3:45 p.m., UI alumnus Steven L. Miller, the chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Shell Oil Co., will present the inaugural Parr Lecture, "Crucible of Change," in Room 100 of Noyes Laboratory. The lecture honors the memory of UI chemistry professor Samuel Parr, who developed a simplified calorimeter at the turn of the century and founded what became Parr Instrument Co.

Representatives of the American Chemical Society will recognize Noyes Laboratory as a National Chemical Landmark on Saturday at 9 a.m. The event will take place on the Quad outside Noyes Laboratory. After the ceremony, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, a prize-winning science history writer, will lecture on the history of the building and the people who have worked in it.

At 11 a.m., Steve Zumdahl, the director of the UI general chemistry program and author of a best-selling chemistry textbook, will give a lecture titled "General Chemistry, Past, Present and Future" in Room 100 of Noyes Laboratory.

The department of chemistry was one of the first departments to be created when the University of Illinois was founded in 1867. Outgrowing the capacity of its original building, the department moved into a larger, newly constructed chemistry building in 1902.

In 1939, the building was named Noyes Laboratory in honor of William Albert Noyes, the head of the department of chemistry from 1907 to 1926. Today, the laboratory is the nucleus of a complex of four buildings dedicated to teaching and research in chemistry.

Although principally home to the School of Chemical Sciences and the department of chemistry, Noyes Laboratory also has housed the departments of biochemistry, chemical engineering (now chemical and biomolecular engineering), microbiology and the Illinois State Water Survey.

More information about the event is available at www.scs.uiuc.edu/centennial.