Gilbert+N.+Lewis

**Biography**
Gilbert Newton Lewis was born on October 23, 1875 in Massachusetts. As a child he was exceptionally smart and bright. He learned to read at the age of three. His family moved to Nebraska when he was eight. he attended the University of Nebraska but transferred to Harvard where he received a bachelors degree and Phd. He also studied in Germany and the Philippines. He taught at Harvard and MIT, but he moved west to California to teach chemistry at the University of California in 1912, there he showed great potential so he was promoted to the Dean of the College of Chemistry. He was nominated for three Nobel peace prizes. In 1946 at California a Graduate Student found him dead in his laboratory. He was working with Hydrogen cyanide and deadly fumes were leaking and killed him.



**Contributions:**
A contribution of Lewis to chemistry is his development of the bonding theory based on the number of electrons in the outermost valence shell of the atom. Lewis also helped develop the field of thermodynamics. He built on the work of Josiah Willard Gibbs. His and Gibbs work combined were valuable in predicting whether reactions will go almost to completion, reach an equilibrium, or proceed almost not at all, and whether a mixture of chemicals can be separated by distillation. He also developed the Lewis structure, which is named after him, it is a drawing that shows the bonding of atoms and electrons.

**Distraction Pages:**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOmQuMHzwpQ&app=desktop

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http://www.haneke.net/

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