Neil Bartlett is a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Sather tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ...

Biography

Neil Bartlett was born September 15, 1932 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom.[1] Bartlett's interest in chemistry dated back to an experiment in grammar school when he was only twelve year old, in which he prepared "beautiful, well-formed" crystals by reaction of aqueous ammonia with copper sulfate. He explored chemistry by constructing a makeshift lab in his parent’s home using chemicals and glassware he purchased from a local supply store. He went on to attend King's College,University of Durham in the United Kingdom where he obtained a Bachelor of Science (1954) and then a doctorate (1958). In 1954 Bartlett's career began upon being appointed a lecturer in chemistry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada where he would ultimately reach the rank of full professor. During his time at the university he made his seminal discovery that noble gases were indeed reactive enough to form bonds. He remained there until 1966, when he moved to Princeton University as a professor of chemistry and a member of the research staff at Bell Laboratories. He then went on to join the chemistry department at the University of California, Berkeley in 1969 as a professor of chemistry until his retirement in 1993. He was also a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 1969 to 1999. In 2000 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. is the 258th day of the year (259th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1932 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... , Newcastle upon Tyne (usually shortened to Newcastle) is a large city in Tyne and Wear, England. ... Ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH) is a name sometimes given to an aqueous solution of ammonia. ... Copper (II) sulfate (CuSO4) is the most common copper salt, made by the action of sulfuric acid on the base copper oxide. ... For the Australian university, see University of Newcastle, Australia. ... The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Canadian public research university with campuses in Vancouver and Kelowna. ... The noble gases are a chemical series. ... Princeton University is a private coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ... Bell Telephone Laboratories or Bell Labs was originally the research and development arm of the United States Bell System, and was the premier corporate facility of its type, developing a range of revolutionary technologies from telephone switches to specialized coverings for telephone cables, to the transistor. ... Sather tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... The Berkeley Lab is perched on a hill overlooking the Berkeley central campus and San Francisco Bay. ...

Research

In 1962 he prepared the first noble gas compound, xenon hexafluoroplatinate, Xe⁺[PtF₆]^-. This contradicted all ideas chemists had of the nature of valency, as it was assumed that xenon, like all noble gases, was totally inert to chemical combination. (This had been explained by such theoretical treatments as Gilbert N. Lewis' octet rule.) He subsequently produced several other compounds of xenon: XeF₂, XeF₄, and XeF₆. Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Noble gas compounds are chemical compounds that include an element from column 18 of the periodic table, the noble gases. ... Xenon hexafluoroplatinate is the description of the product obtained from the combination of platinum hexafluoride and xenon in an experiment that proved the chemical reactivity of the noble gases. ... In chemistry, valency is the power of an atom of an element to combine with other atoms measured by the number of electrons which an atom will give, take, or share to form a chemical bond. ... General Name, Symbol, Number xenon, Xe, 54 Chemical series noble gases Group, Period, Block 18, 5, p Appearance colorless Standard atomic weight 131. ... Lewis in the Berkeley Lab Gilbert Newton Lewis (October 23, 1875-March 23, 1946) was a famous American physical chemist. ... The bonding in carbon dioxide The octet rule is a simple chemical rule of thumb that states that atoms tend to combine in such a way that they each have eight electrons in their valence shells, similar to the electronic configuration of a noble gas. ...

Honors

In 1973 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (United Kingdom). In 1979 he was honored as a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (U. S. A.). In 2006 research into the reactivity of noble gases was designated an ACS National Historical Chemical Landmark in recognition of its significance to the scientific understanding of the chemical bond.[2] For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... The Fellowship of the Royal Society was founded in 1660. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... The ACS National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program was launched by the American Chemical Society in 1992 and has recognized over 50 landmarks to date. ...

External links

• http://chem.berkeley.edu/people/emeriti/nbartlett.html
• http://www.chemistry.msu.edu/Portraits/PortraitsHH_Detail.asp?HH_LName=BartlettN