Biography of stanley miller

He then had financial problems: His father died in and left the family poor. With help from the Berkeley faculty UC Berkeley did not then grant research assistantshipshe received a teaching assistantship at the University of Chicago in February, Teaching would provide the basic funds for graduate work. He searched frantically for a thesis topic, met professors, and preferred theoretical problems rather than experiments, which tended to be laborious.

He initially worked with the theoretical physicist Edward Teller on synthesis of elements. Conforming to the custom of the university, which was that graduate students attend seminars, he attended a chemistry seminar by Nobel laureate Harold Urey on the origin of solar system and the idea that organic synthesis was possible in a reducing environment, such as the primitive Earth's atmosphere.

Miller was immensely inspired. After a year of fruitless work with Teller, and the prospect of Teller's leaving Chicago to work on the hydrogen bomb, Urey approached Miller in September with a fresh research project. Urey was not immediately enthusiastic about Miller's interest in pre-biotic synthesis: No successful work had been done.

Urey suggested that Miller work on thallium in meteorites. With persistence, Miller persuaded Urey to experiment with electric discharges in gases. The experiments found evidence for the production of amino acids in the reaction vessel. Urey or Miller was afraid that specks of fly excrement might be the source of the amino acids or was so chided by classmates.

Excrement was not the source; the result was a demonstration that " organic " chemical compounds could be produced by purely inorganic processes. Miller earned a doctorate inand a long-lasting reputation. The fundamental issue, the connection between "pre-biotic organic" compounds and the origin of life, has remained. Jewett Fellow in and Here he worked on the mechanism involved in the synthesis of amino and hydroxycarboxylic acids.

When the new University of California at San Diego was established, he became the first assistant professor of the Department of Chemistry inand an associate professor inand then a full Professor in He supervised 8 PhD students including Jeffrey L. The Miller experiment was described in his technical paper in the 15 May issue of Science[ 8 ] which transformed the concept of scientific ideas concerning the origin of life into a respectable empirical inquiry.

Urey and Miller designed to simulate the ocean-atmospheric condition of the primitive Earth by using a continuous stream of steam into a mixture of methane CH 4ammonia NH 3and hydrogen H 2. The gaseous mixture was then exposed to electrical discharge, which induced chemical reaction. He also detected aspartic acid and gamma-amino butyric acidbut was not confident about them.

Since amino acids are the basic structural and functional constituents of cellular life, the experiment showed the possibility of natural organic synthesis for the origin of life on earth. Miller showed his results to Urey, who suggested immediate publication. Urey refused to be the co-author lest Miller receive little or no credit. The manuscript with Miller as the sole author was submitted to the biography of stanley miller Science on 10 February After waiting several weeks, Urey inquired and wrote to the chairman of the editorial board on 27 February on the lack of action in reviewing the manuscript.

A month passed, but still there was no decision. On 10 March the infuriated Urey demanded the manuscript to be returned, and he himself submitted it to the Journal of the American Chemical Society on 13 March. Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

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Biography of stanley miller

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Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Stanley Lloyd Miller. Oakland, CaliforniaU. But Miller must have found it wearisome that whenever he was asked to participate in a photo session, he was always requested to pose with the apparatus from his experiment. Indeed, it is hard to find a portrait of Miller in which the familiar circular set-up of glass vessels and tubing are absent; see, for example, the one we include here first imagewhich must haven been taken in the s, 30 years after young Miller was gamely pursuing his PhD.

I suppose there are worse things than becoming famous as a young person for a truly classic piece of scientific investigation. William B. Ashworth, Jr. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw umkc. Scientist of the Day.