Career student

It is frequently said that the scientific career of professors is made by their students and associates who de facto carry out their joint research. I am no exception. However, I first had to create my own little research enclave with an atmosphere and spirit conducive to carrying out our work. I also feel that I was able to motivate my students, to bring out from them talents and efforts that sometimes surprised even them. It was a most rewarding experience to see that most of my students, when they became interested and motivated, achieved much and turned themselves into excellent, productive, and increasingly independent researchers. 

By the end of their college career, most chemistry students have noticed that the information being disseminated in their third- and fourth-year chemistry classes-level seems to conflict with what was taught in introductory courses. 

Before beginning an academic career I was, of course, a student. My interest in chemistry and teaching was nurtured by many fine teachers at Westtown Friends School, Knox College, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel ITill their collective influence continues to bear fruit. In particular, I wish to recognize David Macinnes, Alan ITiebert, Robert Kooser, and Richard Linton. 

Nine years later, the Zeitschrift fur physikalische Chemie was followed by the Journal of Physical Chemistry, founded in the USA by Wilder Bancroft (1867-1953), one of Ostwald s American students. The chequered career of this journal is instructively analysed by both Laidler (1993) and Servos (1990). Bancroft (who spent more than half a century at Cornell University) seems to have been a difficult man, with an eccentric sense of humour thus at a Ph.D. oral examination he asked the candidate What in water puts out fires , and after rejecting some of the answers the student gave with increasing desperation, Bancroft revealed that the right answer was a fireboat . Any scientific author will recognize that this is not the ideal way for a journal editor to behave, let alone an examiner. There is no space here to go into the vagaries of Bancroft s personality (Laidler can be consulted about this), but... 

William Rankme has been credited with many things derived from his brilliant career, with perhaps the most unique being the transition of his empirical work into scientific theories published for the benefit of engineering students. He is considered the author of the modern philosophy of the steam engine and also the greatest among all founders of and contributors to the science of thermodynamics. 

I received my Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) at the State University of Stony Brook in 1988. My thesis research, entitled Computer Explorations of Discrete Complex Systems, was conducted under Professor Max Dresden, who was at the time nearing the end of his professional career a career that began when Max was studying for his own Ph.D. under Uhlen-beck (of spin fame). I was, in fact. Max s last Ph.D. student, and it was Max who one day suggested to me during one of our frequent lunches that he and I ought to write a book on cellular automata together. 

He took an enduring interest in promoting the welfare and careers of his students and colleagues. The biographical articles that he wrote demonstrate his insight into the personalities of those he knew. A raconteur of note, he had a rich collection of anecdotes about major figures in the carbohydrate world, in particular of Haworth and his stem regime. He was always in demand as a speaker, and his infectious enthusiasm communicated science as effectively to lay audiences as to experts. 

Students. Many of those initially attracted to environmental careers are often not prepared for even moderately rigorous science and mathematics-based programs. 

Ph.D. students must be prepared for the interdisciplinary environment in which they will likely spend their careers as biochemical or biomedical engineers. The best way to do this is to expose them to interdisciplinary research as graduate students. To facilitate this, a broad and stable base of research support targeted at interdisciplinary research must be created. Particularly valuable would be support targeted to... 

Most, if not all, textbooks and courses of QM proceed in a similar axiomatic way. At the end of the introduction to QM, most, if not all, students are confused. It takes a long time, several advanced courses, graduate school and often more to master QM. It is ironic that current masters of QM also internalize the paradigm of QM instruction that initially confused and frustrated them, and thus instruct new students in the same way. As a result, those students who take QM as part of a general education and not as the first step of a career in Physics, are left confused forever. I believe this constitutes a failure of the Physics community to communicate to humanity its most precious, successful and beautiful accomplishment. 

Evidently, every chemistry student who is interested in a career in the chemical industry, or in chemical design in general, should know what catalysis is. This is why the authors teach catalysis early on in the chemistry curriculum of their respective imiversities. 

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