Henry Eyring (1901-1981) was a world-renowned theoretical chemist. He was born in Mexico and received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkely. He was a professor of chemistry at Princeton University for 15 years and later served as the dean of the graduate school at the University of Utah.
Henry Eyring was the recipient of many awards, such as the National Medal of Science (1966) for dissolving the Absolute Rate Theory of chemical reactions. He was also awarded the ACS’s Priestly Medal (1975), Sweden’s Berzelius Medal (1979, the Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry (1980) and more.
He was named the President of the American Chemical Society (1963) and elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of over 600 scientific articles, 10 scientific volumes, and several books.
His life was spent in the pursuit of truth with a powerful combination of faith and science. He said, “For me, there has been no serious difficulty in reconciling the principles of true science with the principles of true religion…There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men.”
His son, Henry B. Eyring, is a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
