Willis Rodney Whitney

Willis Rodney Whitney (August 22, 1868 – January 9, 1958) was an American chemist and founder of the research laboratory of the General Electric Company. He is known as the "father of industrial research" in the United States for blending the worlds of research and industry together; which at the time, were two very distinct careers. The class taught by William C.J. Hall, a millowner in Jamestown, showed the boys how to prepare specimens and use an optical microscope.

Whitney also learned from his father, a furniture maker and business owner, how to make and use a ledger. He and his friends started a junk-collecting business, going around town collecting scraps. One day, he met Evelyn Jones on their way to class. She had lost a nickel in the tall grass and was crying that she could not find it. Whitney stopped and helped her find it. Gradually the two spent more and more time together. Whitney decided that he would get a bicycle to go on rides with her; however the bicycle cost nearly the same as a microscope he had hoped to get. He ended up getting the microscope first and then the bicycle. Eventually the two became husband and wife. They had a daughter named Evelyn "Ennin" (nee Whitney) Van Alstyne Schermerhorn. To tackle this problem Whitney recruited the help of some of his former M.I.T. students and foreign scientists. Eventually in December 1903, Whitney found his solution. He used the electric furnaces from his porcelain experiment to subject the current carbon filaments to carefully controlled yet hotter temperatures. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, Whitney would give children who brought him a turtle a quarter. Whitney performed the experiment himself after some reasoning based on colligative properties. He decided that because heating water usually dispels any soluble components, the hot water's freezing point should be raised compared to the colder water's. Thus, the hot water should freeze faster. Performing the experiment himself, he found that the hot water tray that he left in his freezer froze significantly more than the cold water tray, measured by volume. He published his own article in the same journal in June 1946.

Memberships and Positions Whitney held the following positions and was a member of:

Translator of M. Le Blanc's Electro-Chemistry (1896) Member and President of the American Chemical Society (1909) Member and President of The American Electrochemical Society (1911–1912) The U.S. Naval Consulting Board (1915) The National Academy of Sciences (Elected 1917) The Advisory Committee to the National Bureau of Standards (1925-1930) Honorary Vice President of G.E. (1932) Director of G.E. Research Laboratory (1900-1928) Vice President of G.E. in charge of research (1928- 1941) The American Institute of Electrical Engineers The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers The American Institute of Electrical Engineers The American Society for the Advancement of Science The American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Physical Society The American Philosophical Society Honorary Member of the American Steel Treaters' Society The French Legion of Honor The Franklin Institute The British Institute of Metals The National Research Council Trustee of the Albany Medical College Trustee of the Dudley Observatory in Albany The Board of Governors of Union College Emeritus Member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Emeritus Professor of Chemical Research at M.I.T. John Fritz Medal Recipient (1943) First recipient of the IRI Medal from the Industrial Research Institute (1946) Distinguished Service Gold Key from the American Congress of Physical Therapy Walk of Fame Stone at Rollins College First recipient of the Willis Rodney Whitney Award from the National Society of Corrosion Engineers