Mark G. Inghram, 83, U. of C. physicist ; On research team that pegged age of Earth at 4.5 billion years
Posted on: Monday, 13 October 2003, 06:00 CDT
University of Chicago physicist Mark G. Inghram was a member of the research team that established the age of the Earth at 4.5 billion years -- 2 billion years more than previously shown.
Astronomers suspected the Earth was at least 4 billion years old but had found no materials older than 2.5 billion years. In 1953, Mr. Inghram and his colleagues proved that meteorites, which are about the same age as the Earth, were 4.5 billion years old.
The feat earned him the J. Lawrence Smith Medal of the National Academy of Sciences in 1957.
Mr. Inghram, 83, died Monday at his home in Holland, Mich.
With Nobel laureate Willard Libby, he determined the half-life of radioactive carbon-14. Libby used the technique to develop radiocarbon dating.
Mr. Inghram was an inventor and developer of mass spectrometers, which measure amounts of different elements and their isotopes. He discovered more than a dozen naturally occurring and radioactive isotopes.
He celebrated his discoveries by coming home and dancing with his wife. His daughter, Cheryl, recalls, "He was a gifted dancer, graceful and light on his feet."
Mass spectrometers "were his favorite shovels for excavating new areas," said Gerald Wasserburg of the California Institute of Technology. "His instruments were the vehicles for which whole new fields of science were created and explored."
Robert Gomer, emeritus chemistry professor at the U. of C., singled out Mr. Inghram's development of an ion-counting detector that became important in atomic energy research and other fields. "It increased the sensitivity of mass spectrometers by a factor of a million," Gomer said.
Born in Livingston, Mont., Mr. Inghram earned a bachelor's degree from Olivet College in Michigan in 1939 and a Ph.D. from the U. of C. in 1947.
He was a physicist in the Manhattan Project at Columbia University from 1942 to 1945 and a senior physicist at Argonne National Laboratory from 1945 to 1947.
His career at the U. of C. spanned 39 years, from 1947 to 1985. He received an award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in 1981.
Mr. Inghram held several administrative posts, including chairman of the physics department from 1959 to 1970.
As a member of the National Academy of Sciences, he served on two committees -- Nuclear Geophysics and Exploration of the Moon and Planets. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Physical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of 57 years, Evelyn; a son, Mark III; two sisters, Martha Truesdell and Rebecca Schultheis, and four grandchildren.
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