Life and Work
Edgar Fahs Smith was born in York, Pennsylvania and earned his college degree at Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg (now Gettysburg College) in 1874. He received his Ph.D. under Friedrich Wöhler at the University of Göttingen in 1876. Smith then returned to the United States and, in time, became associated with the University of Pennsylvania, as a professor of chemistry (1888-1911), as vice-provost (1899-1911) and then as provost (1911-1920). Smith's scientific research covered the fields of electrochemistry, the determination of atomic weights, and the rare-earth elements.
Smith was a co-founder of the American Chemical Society's History of Chemistry division. He served three times as president of the American Chemical Society and was president of the American Philosophical Society (1902–1908) and the History of Science Society (1928). In 1898 Smith was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
He was awarded the Priestley Medal in 1926.
Smith died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1928.
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Famous quotes containing the words life and/or work:
“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; one will transform and blend them to make a work that is all one’s own, that is, one’s judgement. Education, work, and study aim only at forming this.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)