Irving Langmuir was born in Brooklyn, New York, with an inherent interest in science but eyesight so poor that he could not make out even the individual leaves on trees. He had his first clear glimpse of the world of nature when he was fitted with eyeglasses at the age of 11, and from then on he never tired of studying nature's tiny structures--an atom of hydrogen, for example, or a film of oil only one molecule thick.

Although Langmuir's father died at an early age, he left his son enough money to continue his education in metallurgical engineering at Columbia University. For postgraduate work, Langmuir went to Germany to study chemistry under Walther Hermann Nernst, whose practical approach to science he found appealing. Langmuir's doctoral studies on the Nernst electric lamp laid the foundation for much of his later work. Perhaps Langmuir was also influenced toward applied science...