Abstract
PROF. SAMUEL SUGDEN, who has been appoin superintendent of explosives research, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, for the duration of the War, has been since 1937 university professor of chemistry, University College, London. Prof. Sugden's massive achievements in research cover a wide field. His native inspiration led to the discovery of a property related to the molecular volume and known as Sugden's parachor. This inspired chemical investigations all over the world, and supplied much valuable information regarding the constitution of chemical compounds and the nature of valency linkages. In his book “The Parachor and Valency”, published in 1929, he gave a masterly account of the subject. He has made notable contributions to magnetochemistry. For example, when Pauling concluded from wave mechanics that bivalent nickel, palladium and platinum, unlike the non-transitional elements, can form 4-covalent compounds of plane type which can further be distinguished by their smaller paramagnetic moments, Sugden supplied the first experimental evidence to support this view. It is significant of his keen interest in this field of investigation that he has selected magnetochemistry as the subject for the ninth Liversidge Lecture which the Chemical Society has invited him to deliver. Further evidence of the great fertility of Sugden's researches is found in his investigations on dipole moments, induced radioactivity and the rare earths. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1934. His powers as a thinker and investigator allied with a flair for exposition have earned him distinction as a scientific writer and teacher.
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Prof. S. Sugden, F.R.S. Nature 151, 191 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151191c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151191c0