Willard Libby

Willard Libby (1908-1980) was a University of Chicago professor and physical chemist who proposed carbon dating in the late 1940s and authored a book entitled Radiocarbon Dating (1952). Libby was heralded as a hero on the cover of Time magazine and granted these honors:

• the Chandler Medal of Columbia University, recognizing outstanding achievement in chemistry (1954)
• the American Chemical Society Award for Nuclear Applications in Chemistry (1956)
• the Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute (1957)
• the American Chemical Society's Willard Gibbs Medal Award (1958)
• the Albert Einstein Medal Award (1959);
• the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1960);
• named a member of the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1960); and
• member of the Editorial Board of Science (1962)