Henry Taube. 30 November 1915—16 November 2005

Abstract

Through a lifetime of increasingly broad and significant experiments and discoveries, Henry Taube became the world's premier mechanistic inorganic chemist (one who focuses on reaction pathways and reaction mechanisms produced during inorganic chemical changes). In his first faculty appointment, he examined the oxidation–reduction reaction and identified questions that could only be answered through precise experimentation. He then focused on the chemistry of transition metal complexes, laying out the details of what he called ‘inner sphere electron transfer’. He went on to compile a broad range of findings, leading to the elevation of inorganic chemistry to a major field of study. Taube earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Saskatchewan and a PhD from UC Berkeley. After receiving his doctorate in 1941, he took a position as an instructor at Cornell University, where he remained until 1946. He then joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he carried out seminal investigations of the electron transfer reactions between metal ion complexes. In 1962 he moved to Stanford, where he continued studies of electron transfer mechanisms. He also twice served as chair (1972–74; 1978–79) of the Stanford Department of Chemistry and subsequently was appointed the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in 1976. He formally retired from the faculty in 1986, but continued as an active scientist long afterward.