Lipscomb was born on December 9, 1919, to William and Edna (Porter) Lipscomb. He grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, after his family had moved there from Cleveland, Ohio, when he was a year old. He graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in chemistry in 1941. After serving with the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, he finished his doctorate in physical chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in 1946. His thesis advisor was the distinguished Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling. Lipscomb taught for several years at the University of Minnesota, and in 1959 moved to Harvard University, where he spent the rest of his career.

The bonding in boranes--a compound consisting of boron and hydrogen--had puzzled chemists ever since the German chemist Alfred Stock had synthesized them. (Boranes do not normally occur in nature; they are purely man-made compounds.) Normally, chemists expect a bond...