Quack, Martin

Franklin Martin, the pioneer of the electrochemical treatment (ECT) of tumors,2 became a major force in the development of surgery in America however, towards the end of his life, he regretted that treatments with electricity had fallen into the hands of quacks and charlatans and therefore into disrepute.7 As was stated in 1991 by Watson 7 Even today this area of research is not favoured by grant-giving bodies and is viewed from the same perspective of disbelief. Also, the lack of easy availability of well-controlled and calibrated power supplies, ammeters and voltmeters—and thus the definition of optimum electrolytic conditions—at the end of nineteenth century, caused electrolytic burns and other failures in some patients so that the technique was never integrated into the routine clinical practice. 

P. W. Brumer Several of the speakers (namely Profs. B. A. Hess, M. Quack, and M. S. Child), responding to my question, have suggested that something different happens in the classical limit. However, if we accept the idea that quantum mechanics is a generally applicable theory, then it is applicable to macroscopic systems in the classical limit. As such, dynamics and coherences are, as I said, synonymous in both the quantum and the classical limits. I favor the view of Martin Quack that the closeness of the level spacings in large systems simplifies the preparation of a superposition. Hence experiments on larger molecules seem desirable. 

The revisions have mainly been carried out by Ian Mills and myself with substantial input from Robert Alberty, Kozo Kuchitsu and Martin Quack as well as from other members of the IUPAC Commission on Physicochemical Symbols, Terminology and Units. 

ETH Zurich, Physical Chemistry, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 10, CH-8093, Zurich, Switzerland e-mail martin quack.ch... 

I am deeply indebted to Martin Quack for his stimulus, for sharing ideas and insight as well as for his support and help in various ways. Therefore, this chapter is dedicated to him on the occasion of his 55th birthday. I thank Jurgen Stohner for his comments on the manuscript and for stimulating discussions on various aspects of molecular parity violation. And last but not least I thank my student Guido Laubender for his dedicated work. 

I am grateful to Frank Brown, Michael Coltrin, Cliff Dykstra, Gene Hancock, Paul Rejto, Roland Schweitzer, David Schwenke, Rozeanne Steckler, Devarajan Thirumalai, and Michael Unekis for collaboration on HF-HF projects, to Millard Alexander, Phil Bunker, Fleming Crim, Gerry Fraser, Stephen Leone, Roger Miller, Alan Pine, and Martin Quack for helpful discussions or sending recent results, and to the National Science Foundation for financial support. 

Weakly bound systems from van der Waals to strong hydrogen bonds are treated theoretically in ECC in the article by Bogumil Jeziorski Intermolecular Interactions by Perturbation Theory). Related articles are those of Tucker Carrington Vibrational Energy Level Calculations), Wolfgang Domcke Vibronic Dynamics in Polyatomic Molecules), and of Martin Quack Multiphoton Excitation). 

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