John Pople
Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | |
---|---|
Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
Known for | Computational methods in quantum chemistry |
Spouse |
Joy Bowers
(m. 1952; died 2002) |
Awards |
|
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Lone Pair Electrons[2] (1951) |
Doctoral advisor | John Lennard-Jones[2] |
Doctoral students | |
Website | nobelprize |
Sir John Anthony Pople KBE FRS[1] (31 October 1925 – 15 March 2004)[1][5] was a British theoretical chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walter Kohn in 1998 for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry.[6][7][8][9]
Early life and education
Pople was born in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, and attended the Bristol Grammar School. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1943. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1946. Between 1945 and 1947 he worked at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. He then returned to the University of Cambridge and was awarded his PhD in mathematics in 1951 on lone pair electrons.[2]
Career
After obtaining his PhD, he was a research fellow at
Research
Pople's major scientific contributions were in four different areas:[12]
Statistical mechanics of water
Pople's early paper on the statistical mechanics of water, according to Michael J. Frisch, "remained the standard for many years".[12][13] This was his thesis topic for his PhD at Cambridge supervised by John Lennard-Jones.[2][10]
Nuclear magnetic resonance
In the early days of nuclear magnetic resonance he studied the underlying theory, and in 1959 he co-authored the textbook High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance with W.G. Schneider and H.J. Bernstein.[12]
Semi-empirical theory
He made major contributions to the theory of approximate
Ab initio electronic structure theory
Pople pioneered the development of more sophisticated computational methods, called
The Gaussian molecular orbital methods were described in the 1986 book Ab initio molecular orbital theory by Warren Hehre, Leo Radom, Paul v.R. Schleyer and Pople.[19]
Awards and honours
Pople received the
An IT room and a scholarship are named after him at Bristol Grammar School, as is a supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
Personal life
Pople married Joy Bowers in 1952 and was married until her death from cancer in 2002. Pople died of liver cancer in Chicago in 2004. He was survived by his daughter Hilary, and sons Adrian, Mark and Andrew.[21] In accordance with his wishes, Pople's Nobel Medal was given to Carnegie Mellon University by his family on 5 October 2009.
See also
References
- ^ S2CID 68810170.
- ^ a b c d e John Pople at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Martin Head-Gordon IAQMS page
- ^ Krishnan Raghavachari page
- .
- ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "John Pople", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- ^ John Pople on Nobelprize.org
- ^ "Pople's early photo (1950's)". Archived from the original on 26 September 2008. Retrieved 18 March 2004.
- ^ John Pople Oral history (pdf) Archived 18 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Wright, Pearce (19 March 2004). "Obituary Sir John Pople". The Guardian.
- ^ John Pople Chronology at Gaussian. Archived 24 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c d Frisch, Michael J. (17 March 2004). "Reflections on John Pople's Career and Legacy". Archived from the original on 24 July 2010.
- S2CID 97458304.
- .
- ^ Gaussian's page on John Pople Archived 24 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Pople, J. A. (1973). D. W. Smith (ed.). "Theoretical Models for Chemistry". Proceedings of the Summer Research Conference on Theoretical Chemistry, Energy Structure and Reactivity. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
- ^ Pople's Q-Chem page
- PMID 15152213.
- ^ "AB INITIO Molecular Orbital Theory". Wiley. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
- ^ Official homepage of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998
- ^ Notable Biographies
External links
- Mangravite, Andrew (2007). "Finding Aid to the Papers of Sir John A. Pople, 1930–2004 (bulk 1965–2000)". Science History Institute.
Click link to 'Sir John A. Pople finding aid' on landing page to go to full document.
- Sir John Pople, Gaussian Code, and Complex Chemical Reactions, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
- John Pople on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1998 Quantum Chemical Models