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Wallace Hume Carothers (April 27, 1896 – April 29, 1937) was an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont, credited with the invention of nylon.〔Hermes, Matthew. ''Enough for One Lifetime. Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon'', Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1996, ISBN 0-8412-3331-4.〕 Carothers was a group leader at the DuPont Experimental Station laboratory, near Wilmington, Delaware, where most polymer research was done.〔Roberts, RM (1989) ''Serendipity: Accidental discoveries In Science'', John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-60203-5〕 Carothers was an organic chemist who, in addition to first developing nylon, also helped lay the groundwork for Neoprene. After receiving his Ph.D., he taught at several universities before he was hired by DuPont to work on fundamental research. He married Helen Sweetman on February 21, 1936. Carothers had been troubled by periods of depression since his youth. Despite his success with nylon, he felt that he had not accomplished much and had run out of ideas. His unhappiness was compounded by the death of his sister, Isobel, and on the evening of April 28, 1937 he checked into a Philadelphia hotel room and committed suicide by drinking a cocktail of lemon juice laced with potassium cyanide.〔Burton, Holman, Lazonby, Pilling & Waddington, ''Chemical Storylines'', Heinemann Educational Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-435-63119-5〕 His daughter, Jane, was born on November 27, 1937. ==Early life and education== Carothers was born on April 27, 1896 in Burlington, Iowa, to Ira and Mary Evalina Carothers. He was the oldest of four children. He had one brother and two sisters: John, Isobel and Elizabeth. As a youth, Carothers was fascinated by tools and mechanical devices and spent many hours experimenting. He attended public school in Des Moines, Iowa, where he was known as a conscientious student. After graduation, and under pressure from his father, Carothers enrolled in the Capital City Commercial College in Des Moines, where his father was Vice-President, completing the accountancy and secretarial curriculum in July 1915. In September 1915, he entered Tarkio College in Missouri. Although he initially majored in English, he switched to chemistry under the influence of Arthur Pardee, head of that department.〔D. L. Fishel, personal reminiscence from A. Pardee (1959).〕 Carothers so excelled in chemistry that before graduation he was made a chemistry instructor and studied for as well as taught the senior course when Pardee left to become chairman of the chemistry department at the University of South Dakota.〔Zumdahl, Susan and Steven. ''Chemistry''. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007.〕 He graduated from Tarkio in 1920 at the age of 24 with a bachelor of science degree. Then he went to the University of Illinois for his master of arts degree, which he received in 1921 under the guidance of Professor Carl Marvel.〔D. L. Fishel, personal conversations with C. Marvel and A. Pardee (1959).〕 During the 1921–22 school year, Carothers held a one-year appointment as a chemistry instructor at the University of South Dakota. It was at the University of South Dakota that he began his independent research that resulted in an article accepted by the ''Journal of the American Chemical Society''. In this paper he measured physical properties of phenylisocyanate and of diazobenzene-imide (now known as phenyl azide〔(''Chemical Book'' (2010) entry for phenyl azide )〕). The properties have very similar values, which led him to the conclusion that the structure of the second compound is C6H5-N=N=N, with the three nitrogen atoms in a linear chain rather than a ring as previously thought.〔Hermes, ''Enough for One Lifetime'', p.28-30〕〔W.H. Carothers (1923), J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 45, 1734-1738 ''The isosterism of phenyl isocyanate and diazobenzene-imide''〕 He went back to the University of Illinois to study for his Ph.D. under Roger Adams. His degree was awarded in 1924. He specialized in organic chemistry and minored in physical chemistry and mathematics. He worked as a research assistant during 1922–1923 and received the Carr Fellowship for 1923–24. This was the most prestigious award offered by the university at that time. He was initiated into Alpha Chi Sigma in 1926 as a member of Zeta Chapter at the University of Illinois.〔http://www.alphachisigma.org/page.aspx?pid=268〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wallace Carothers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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