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The short answer: Wendell M. Latimer and Worth H. Rodebush, at the University of California, Berkeley, who published "Polarity and Ionization from the Standpoint of the Lewis Theory of Valence" in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in July 1920 (volume 42, pages 1419–1433), according to the Crossref record of the paper. Its idea, now standard in Class 11 chemistry: a hydrogen atom can sit between two electronegative atoms and hold them together.
Who first described the hydrogen bond in chemistry?
Latimer came to Berkeley drawn by the reputation of G. N. Lewis and earned his PhD there in 1919, says Berkeley chemistry's profile of Latimer. It says the 1920 paper "contained the first clear recognition of the hydrogen bond as distinct from ordinary dipoles."
The credit is not entirely tidy. In a centenary review, E. Arunan of the Indian Institute of Science notes that Linus Pauling's classic book credited Latimer and Rodebush as the first to mention the hydrogen bond, but their paper itself cites unpublished work by Huggins, a Berkeley student, on "a hydrogen kernel held between two atoms" (Arunan, Journal of the Indian Institute of Science, 2020). So Latimer and Rodebush get the credit for the first clear published statement of the idea, which they applied to water.
What did Latimer and Rodebush actually say?
They placed water between ammonia, which readily takes up hydrogen, and hydrogen chloride, which gives it up. Then came the key passage, quoted in Arunan's review: "Then, in terms of the Lewis theory, a free pair of electrons from one water molecule might be able to exert sufficient force on a hydrogen held by a pair of electrons on another water molecule to bind the two molecules together."
They concluded that "the hydrogen nucleus held between 2 octets constitutes a weak 'bond'." Arunan points out that they had no X-ray or spectroscopic data to go on. They worked from Lewis dot structures alone.
Why does water boil at 100 °C when H2S is a gas?
Check the idea against real data, the boiling points of the group 16 hydrides:
H2O: 373.17 K, about 100 °C (NIST WebBook, water)
H2S: 212.87 K, about −60 °C (NIST WebBook, H2S)
H2Se: −41.3 °C, from The Merck Index via PubChem
H2Te: about 271 K (−2 °C), solved from the vapour-pressure equation in the NIST WebBook, H2Te
From H2Te to H2S the molecules get lighter, with fewer electrons, so the attractions between them weaken and the boiling point falls. Continue that pattern and water should boil lowest of all. Instead, on the NIST values above, it boils about 160 K higher than H2S.
The extra attraction is the hydrogen bond. Oxygen is small and strongly electronegative, so each O–H hydrogen carries a large partial positive charge and can reach a lone pair on a neighbouring oxygen. Boiling means pulling molecules out of that network. Sulfur is larger and less electronegative, so H2S holds on far more weakly. For water's other oddities, read about Charusita Chakravarty and the anomalies of water.
How is the hydrogen bond defined today?
The old IUPAC definition said both atoms are usually N, O or F. Arunan's review notes that it ignored the large body of work on C–H···O hydrogen bonds. In 2011 an IUPAC task group of 14 chemists, including Arunan and Gautam R. Desiraju of IISc Bengaluru, recommended a new definition (Arunan and colleagues, Pure and Applied Chemistry, 2011).
The IUPAC 2011 definition reads: "The hydrogen bond is an attractive interaction between a hydrogen atom from a molecule or a molecular fragment X–H in which X is more electronegative than H, and an atom or a group of atoms in the same or a different molecule, in which there is evidence of bond formation." The recommendation also lists six criteria that can serve as that evidence.
For a biological case, see how Linus Pauling worked out the alpha helix.
How do you use this in a board or JEE answer?
Run this three-step check before you write "due to hydrogen bonding":
Is a hydrogen bonded directly to N, O or F? At school level, H on carbon does not count.
Is there a lone pair on N, O or F nearby for that hydrogen to reach?
Is the bond between molecules or inside one molecule? Only bonds between molecules have to be broken when a liquid boils.
Then write the full causal chain: "O–H present, so molecules are linked by intermolecular hydrogen bonds, so more energy is needed to separate them, so the boiling point is higher."
To practise whole series, see our guide to boiling point order in organic compounds.
If intermolecular forces still feel blurry, the Fermi Concept Library has a lesson for every concept in chemistry. If one question type keeps tripping you up, the Fermi Problem Library has a step-by-step solver that explains the reasoning rather than printing an answer.
