Willis H. Flygare (July 24, 1936 – May 18, 1981) was an American

physical chemist Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical me ...

and professor at

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

. National Academies Press, Biographical Memoirs,Willis H. Flygare,By David Chandler
/ref>
/ref>

Background

Flygare was born in

Jackson, Minnesota Jackson is a city and county seat of Jackson County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 3,299 at the 2010 census. History Jackson was originally called Springfield, and under the latter name was laid out in 1856. A post office calle ...

. He was the son of Willis B. and Doris H. Flygare, both of whom were of Scandinavian descent. He attended St. Olaf College in

Northfield, Minnesota Northfield is a city in Dakota and Rice counties in the State of Minnesota. It is mostly in Rice County, with a small portion in Dakota County. The population was 20,790 at the 2020 census. History Northfield was platted in 1856 by John W. N ...

, from which he graduated in 1958 with majors in chemistry, physics, and mathematics. He later attended graduate school at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, earning his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1961.

Career

Flygare became a professor of chemistry at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

in 1961 and stayed in that position until his premature death at age 44 of

Lou Gehrig disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control Skeletal muscle, voluntary muscles. ALS ...

. Flygare is credited with "outstanding contributions to the understanding of molecular electronic structure". He invented a highly sensitive pulsed-beam, Fourier-transform microwave spectrometer. He also developed a new method based on the molecular

Zeeman effect The Zeeman effect (; ) is the effect of splitting of a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field. It is named after the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman, who discovered it in 1896 and received a Nobel prize ...

for measurements of molecular

quadrupole moment A quadrupole or quadrapole is one of a sequence of configurations of things like electric charge or current, or gravitational mass that can exist in ideal form, but it is usually just part of a multipole expansion of a more complex structure refl ...

s and

magnetic susceptibility In electromagnetism, the magnetic susceptibility (Latin: , "receptive"; denoted ) is a measure of how much a material will become magnetized in an applied magnetic field. It is the ratio of magnetization (magnetic moment per unit volume) to the ap ...

anisotropies Anisotropy () is the property of a material which allows it to change or assume different properties in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. It can be defined as a difference, when measured along different axes, in a material's physic ...

. He received

Irving Langmuir Award The Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics is awarded annually, in even years by the American Chemical Society and in odd years by the American Physical Society. The award is meant to recognize and encourage outstanding interdisciplinary resear ...

in 1981. Flygare was a professor of chemistry at Illinois, a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. The University of Illinois established lectures in his name and a memorial fund. The

called him "one of the most creative and dynamic physical chemists in the world." The

National Academies Press The US National Academies Press (NAP) was created to publish the reports issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research C ...

called him "a great

Awards and distinctions

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s in 1972 and 1978 *

Phi Lambda Upsilon Phi Lambda Upsilon National Honorary Chemical Society () was founded in 1899 at the Noyes Laboratory of the University of Illinois. Phi Lambda Upsilon was the first honor society dedicated to scholarship in a single discipline, chemistry. Object ...

Fresenius Award in 1971Phi Lambda Upsilon:Award Recipients
/ref> * Baekeland Medal in 1973 *

in 1981 * elected to the

in 1974 * honorary doctorate from St. Olaf College in 1976

References

External links

David Chandler, "Willis H. Flygare", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2005)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flygare, Willis H. 1936 births 1981 deaths People from Jackson, Minnesota American physical chemists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences St. Olaf College alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Illinois faculty Neurological disease deaths in Illinois Deaths from motor neuron disease in the United States American people of Norwegian descent Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century American chemists