GOMBERG, MOSES

GOMBERG, MOSES (1866–1947), U.S. organic chemist, born in Yelizavetgrad (now Kirovograd), Russia. In 1884 his father was accused of anti-czarist activities and fled with his family to Chicago, U.S.A. In spite of financial hardship, Moses graduated at the University of Michigan. In 1896–97 he went to Germany to work with Baeyer at Munich and Victor Meyerat Heidelberg. He subsequently returned to the University of Michigan where he became professor of chemistry. During World War I, he undertook the (to him abhorrent) task of working out commercial production of mustard gas, and as a major in the ordinance department advised on the manufacture of smokeless powder and high explosives. Of his various activities in organic chemistry – including the diazo reaction that bears his name – he is best known for his work on free radicals and his demonstration that carbon can exhibit a valency of three instead of the normal four. He was president of the American Chemical Society in 1931. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Schoepele and Bachmann, in: Journal of the American Chemical Society, 69 (1948), 2921–25; E. Farber (ed.), Great Chemists (1962), 1211–17. (Samuel Aaron Miller)