Rudolph A. Marcus

Rudolph A. Marcus (b. 1923 in Canada) is Arthur Amos Noyes. Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. 

He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems. Dr. Marcus is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. (1970) and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London, 1987). His other distinctions include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (Israel, 1985) and the National Medal of Science (1989). Our conversation was recorded in Dr. Marcus s office at the California Institute of Technology on February 19, 1996.  

If we can jump ripfht in at the middle, in addition to electron transfer reactions, what other reactions have you studied  

I have also studied unimolecular reactions. There are also atom transfer reactions and proton transfer reactions. 

It s fantastically common. It cuts across many fields. It s in biology, in photosynthesis, in respiration it s also in inorganic chemistry, in electrochemistry, in the solid state it s in the hopping problems, charge transfer spectra. It just goes into many, many areas. 

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R. Kosloef, The Fritz Haber Research Center for Molecular Dynamics and Department of Physical Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jemsalem, Israel Rudolph A. Marcus, Department of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, U.S.A. 

J Taube, H. Electron Transfer Reactions of Complex Ions In Solution Academic New York. 1970 Chapter 2. Haim A. Acc. Chem. Fes. 1975, 8, 264-272. Pennington, D. E. In Coordination Chemistry Martcll, A. E.. Ed. ACS Monograph 174 American Chemical Society Washington, DC. 1978 Yol. 2. pp 476-590. Taube. H. Science 1984.226, 1028-1036 (Professor Taube s Nobel Prize address). An Appreciation of Henry Taube, Prog. Invrg. Chem. 1983, 30. Rudolph A. Marcus Commemorative Issue, J. Phys. Chem, 1986, 90, 3453-3862. 

Rudolph A. Marcus Chemistry Theory of electron transfer reactions... 

Rudolph A. Marcus is perhaps the most famous theoretician to be raised in Canada. He has received many awards, most notably the 1992 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Marcus was born in Montreal. He received a B.Sc. degree in chemistry from McGill University in 1943, and a Ph.D. degree from the same institution in 1946. After doing postdoctoral research at the National Research Council of Canada and at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he became a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1951 to 1964 and at the University of Illinois from 1964 to 1978, when he was named the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology. His seminal contributions to the realms of electron transfer theory and intramolecular dynamics continue to earn him honors, including the 1997 ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry. 

We wish to acknowledge helpful discussions with Rudolph A. Marcus. This research was carried out at Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U.S. Department of Energy and was supported by its Division of Chemical Sciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. 

Rudolph A. Marcus (bom 1923) introduced a theory of electron transfer, named Marcus theory. 

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