Quick Facts
Born:
Nov. 16, 1881, Camden, N.J., U.S.
Died:
April 30, 1983, Kensington, Calif. (aged 101)

Joel H. Hildebrand (born Nov. 16, 1881, Camden, N.J., U.S.—died April 30, 1983, Kensington, Calif.) was a U.S. educator and chemist whose monograph Solubility (1924; later editions, Solubility of Non-Electrolytes) was the classic reference for almost a half century.

Hildebrand spent the greater part of his professional life at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was in turn dean of the College of Letters and Science and the College of Chemistry.

Hildebrand was the author of more than 200 scientific papers and a number of chemistry texts and was sought as a speaker and consultant in the United States and abroad. Cited for his research and consultative services in World Wars I and II, he received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1918 and the King’s Medal (British) in 1948. Among his publications were An Introduction to Molecular Kinetic Theory (1963), Principles of Chemistry, (7th ed., 1964), Regular and Related Solutions (with J.M. Prausnitz and R.L. Scott, 1970), and Viscosity and Diffusivity (1977).

Michael Faraday (L) English physicist and chemist (electromagnetism) and John Frederic Daniell (R) British chemist and meteorologist who invented the Daniell cell.
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This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

solubility, degree to which a substance dissolves in a solvent to make a solution (usually expressed as grams of solute per litre of solvent). Solubility of one fluid (liquid or gas) in another may be complete (totally miscible; e.g., methanol and water) or partial (oil and water dissolve only slightly). In general, “like dissolves like” (e.g., aromatic hydrocarbons dissolve in each other but not in water). Some separation methods (absorption, extraction) rely on differences in solubility, expressed as the distribution coefficient (ratio of a material’s solubilities in two solvents). Generally, solubilities of solids in liquids increase with temperature and those of gases decrease with temperature and increase with pressure. A solution in which no more solute can be dissolved at a given temperature and pressure is said to be saturated (see saturation). See also Joel Hildebrand.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Erik Gregersen.