7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

Willard Libby

(b. Dec. 17, 1908, Grand Valley, Colo., U.S.—d. Sept. 8, 1980, Los
Angeles, Calif.)

W

illard Frank Libby was an American chemist whose
technique of carbon-14 (or radiocarbon) dating
provided an extremely valuable tool for archaeologists,
anthropologists, and earth scientists. For this develop-
ment he was honoured with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry
in 1960.
Libby, the son of farmer Ora Edward Libby and his
wife, Eva May (née Rivers), attended the University of
California at Berkeley, where he received a bachelor’s
degree (1931) and a doctorate (1933). After graduation, he
joined the faculty at Berkeley, where he rose through the
ranks from instructor (1933) to assistant professor (1938) to
associate professor (1945). In 1940 he married Leonor
Hickey, by whom he had twin daughters. In 1966 he was
divorced and married Leona Woods Marshall, a staff mem-
ber at the RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, Calif.
In 1941 Libby received a Guggenheim fellowship to
work at Princeton University in New Jersey, but his work
was interrupted by the entry of the United States into
World War II. He was sent on leave to the Columbia War
Research Division of Columbia University in New York
City, where he worked with Nobel chemistry laureate
Harold C. Urey until 1945. Libby became professor of
chemistry at the Institute for Nuclear Studies (now the
Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies) and the
department of chemistry at the University of Chicago
(1945–59). He was appointed by Pres. Dwight D.
Eisenhower to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
(1955–59). From 1959 Libby was a professor of chemistry
at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director