Polanyi. John

Polanyi, John C. (1929-). Awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1986 jointly with Herschbach and Lee. Herschbach reported that the energies of reactions of colliding beams of isolated alkali metal atoms and alkyl halide molecules appeared mostly as vibrational excited states of products. Polanyi characterized the excited states by the infrared light emitted by product molecules. His work also led to the development of lasers. Bom in Germany, Polanyi studied in England and later became a Canadian citizen. Doctorate awarded by Manchester Universi-ty, England, in 1952. 

Polanyi, John C., Zewail, Ahmed H. 1995. "Direct Observation of the Transition State."... 

Poirier Raymond A., 818,el47 PoldSek Marek, 99 Polanyi John Charles,... 

Polanyi, John Charles (b. 1929) Canadian physical chemist who... 

Usually we talk about reactions in solution, but recently techniques have been developed to follow reactions that occur in a vacuum when a stream of reactant A and a stream of reactant B cross each other in a defined direction, as with molecular beams. From the direction in which the products are ejected and their energies, much fundamental information can be deduced about the details of the molecular processes. Lasers, which emit light-energy in a highly focused beam, are sometimes used to put energy into one of the reactants in a defined way. Such a technique reveals less about the nature of the transition state than about what is called the dynamics of the process—how molecules collide so as to react, and how the products carry away the energy of the overall reaction. The development and application of such techniques were recognized by a Nobel Prize in 1986 to Dudley Herschbach, Yuan Lee, and John Polanyi. 

LEE, YUAN T. (1936-). Awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 19X6 jointly with John C. Polanyi and Dudley R. Herschbach for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes. A former student of Herschbach. Lee relined molecular-beam and laser techniques, comhining them with theory to perform definitive studies of reactions of individual complex molecules. Lee received his Doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965. 

Reasons of space have precluded mentioning more than a few of his collaborators and pupils by name. He had a profound effect on the thinking of these pupils, and his influence will continue to be felt through his own and their writings for many years to come. One and all they remain grateful for their contact at a formative age with Polanyi s outstanding intellect. Michael Polanyi is survived by his wife, Magda, and by their son, John, Professor of Physical Chemistry at Toronto University, who is also well known for his work in reaction kinetics. 

Michael Polanyi, 1891-1976. Hungarian physicist who worked in Berlin and Manchester. His son, John Charles Polanyi, received the Noble Price in chemistry in 1986. 

Huzinaga was the recipient of the 1994 John C. Polanyi Award of the Canadian Society for Chemistry. In his award lecture he described his model potential method, which deals only with the active electrons in molecular and solid state calculations. An invited review article,59 based on his 1994 Polanyi Award lecture, chronicles his efforts to develop a sound theoretical framework for the core-valence separation of electrons, a problem Van Vleck and Sherman60 once referred to as the nightmare of the inner core. ... 

Molecular beams are very important tools for characterizing intermolecular and intramolecular reactions. In fact, the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Yuan Lee, Dudley Herschbach, and John Polanyi for studies which were mostly made possible by this technique. A particularly useful variant is the supersonic molecular beam, which in the simplest case pushes a high-pressure mixture of helium and trace amounts of some larger guest molecule through a nozzle. When the helium atoms enter the... 

From the many readings available about Polanyi s life and scientific career two are recommended herein one is written by Eugen P. Wigner (1902-1995, Nobel Prize 1963) who was Polanyi s student in Berlin in the 1920s and lifelong friend [vi], and the other by his son John C. Polanyi (1929-, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1986) who continued the family tradition regarding the study of reaction dynamics [vii]. Additional information on Polanyi can be found on the Polanyi Society home-page [viii]. See also Polanyi s rule. 

John Charles Polanyi was born in Berlin, Germany, into a family of Hungarian origin. Polanyi was born on the eve of the Great Depression, shortly before the Nazi takeover. His father moved to England to become a chemistry professor at Manchester University. Polanyi was sent to Canada for safety during the darkest years of World Warll. 

John Polanyi went back to England to earn a doctorate in chemistry at Manchester University in 1952. He returned to Canada a few years later. Soon after, he took up a position at the University of Toronto. There Dr. Polanyi pursued the research that earned him a share of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1986. He pioneered the field of reaction dynamics, which addresses one of the most basic questions in chemistry What happens when two substances interact to produce another substance Polanyi s father had once investigated the same question. 

One of the first attempts to compare the effect of different forms of energy on gas-phase reactions was done in a very general way by John Polanyi [70, 73]. When the reaction barrier is in the entrance or the exit channel of the reaction, translational or vibrational energy, respectively, is more efficient at promoting the reaction. These rules, known as Polanyi s rules, are not linked specifically to electron-transfer reactions. On the contrary, they were derived without reference to a specific reaction. As an illustration of these rules in an electron-transfer reaction, vibrational excitation of HCl gives easier access than translation to a late barrier in the K-hHCl reaction [123, 124]. 

The detection of nonfluorescent ground states within a large population distribution is a difficult problem, as we have just seen for Ca-HCl. A new and general method has been proposed by John Polanyi s group to address this problem in clusters. Here also the reacting system composed of a metal and a molecule or an aggregate of molecules is prepared in a locally excited state of the metal, yielding short-lived quasi-bound states whose resonances are analyzed to unravel the electron-transfer reaction. 

John C. Polanyi (b. 1929 in Berlin) is University Professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Dudley R. Herschbach (b. 1932), Yuan T. Lee (b. 1936), and John Polanyi received jointly the chemistry 1986 Nobel Prize for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes. ... 

The location of the conversation with John Polanyi, on Tuesday, August 1, 1995, was his quiet office but his schedule was hectic. The interview is augmented here by the brief speech he gave at the Stockholm City Hall on the occasion of the Nobel Prize award ceremonies in December, 1986. ... 

John Polanyi in the lab at the University of Toronto, about 1982 (courtesy of John Polanyi). 

John and Michael Polanyi (courtesy of the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest). 

Nobel Banquet, Stockholm, December 10, 1986 by John C. Polanyi... 

Michael Polanyi was an early influence on Dudley Herschbach. He cherishes the memory of all his five meetings with Polanyi. The first time they met was in 1962 when Michael Polanyi came to Berkeley to give some lectures. Polanyi visited Herschbach s laboratory and Polanyi was telling him stories about his son John. Polanyi was surprised that John became a scientist because, he said, John in his teenage years used to bitterly criticize his father, saying that he was writing papers, all the time, that were not connected with the real world. 

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