20 Facts About Farrington Daniels

Farrington Daniels was an American physical chemist who is considered one of the pioneers of the modern direct use of solar energy.

Farrington Daniels began day school in 1895 at the Kenwood School and then on to Douglas School.

Farrington Daniels decided early that he wanted to be an electrician and inventor.

Farrington Daniels was initiated into the Beta Chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma in 1908.

Farrington Daniels entered Harvard in 1911, paying for his studies partly through a teaching fellowship, and received a PhD in 1914.

Farrington Daniels joined the University of Wisconsin in 1920 as an assistant professor in 1920, and remained until his retirement in 1959 as chairman of the chemistry department.

Farrington Daniels served first as associate director of the laboratory's chemistry division from the summer of 1944 before, on July 1,1945, becoming overall director of that institution, a post held until May 1946.

Farrington Daniels was active in the planning of the laboratory's immediate successor, the Argonne National Laboratory, serving as the first chairman of its Board of Governors from 1946 until 1948.

The "Farrington Daniels' pile" was an early version of the later high-temperature gas-cooled reactor developed further at ORNL without success, but which was developed later as a nuclear power reactor by Rudolf Schulten.

Farrington Daniels became concerned to limit or stop the nuclear arms race after the war.

Farrington Daniels was elected in 1928 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Farrington Daniels was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1947 and the American Philosophical Society in 1948.

Farrington Daniels was awarded the Priestley Medal and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957.

Farrington Daniels died on June 23,1972, from complications from liver cancer.

Farrington Daniels was survived by his wife, four children, and twelve grandchildren.

Farrington Daniels was inducted posthumously to the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame in 1982.

Farrington Daniels became a leading American expert on the principles involved with the practical utilization of solar energy.

Farrington Daniels pursued understanding of the heat and the convection that can be derived from it, as well as the electrical energy that could be derived from it.

Farrington Daniels was active with the Association for Applied Solar Energy in the mid-1950s.

Farrington Daniels suggested that AFASE embark upon the publication of a scientific journal, and the first issue of The Journal of Solar Energy Science and Engineering appeared in January, 1957.