James Bryant Conant (1893–1978) was an American chemist, a transformative President of Harvard University, and the first U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a PhD in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. During World War I he served in the U.S. Army during, working on the development of poison gases. He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1919, and the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of natural products, particularly chlorophyll, and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between chemical equilibrium and the reaction rate of chemical processes. He studied the biochemistry of oxyhemoglobin providing insight into the disease methemoglobinemia, helped to explain the structure of chlorophyll, and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of acid-base chemistry.
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The dignity of man is vindicated as much by the thinker and poet as by the statesman and soldier.
—James Bryant Conant
Topics: Dignity
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
—James Bryant Conant
Topics: Discovery, Success, Courage, Risk, Perspective
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