Biographical Memoirs Volume 75 (1998) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Richard Barry Bernstein
Richard Barry Bernstein
Pages 38-57
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 39... ...
his attention to the task of obtaining a direct experimental characterization of these forces, which hac! traclitionally been obtained indirectly from the bulk properties of matter.
|
From page 40... ...
the fruitful synergism between experiment en c! theory that is characteristic of the chemical dynamics field!
|
From page 41... ...
for a time to a post at Oak Ricige, Tennessee. In 1945 he was transferred back to Columbia to continue Manhattan Project work.
|
From page 42... ...
into his Ph.D. studies at Columbia, investigating isotope separation uncler the su
|
From page 43... ...
It was cluring his Michigan era that Dick began his crucial move into molecular beam studies of molecular forces en c! chemical reactivity.
|
From page 44... ...
on Datz en c! Taylor's clevelopment of a remarkable surface ionization detector that could detect alkali metals and their halides with high efficiency en c!
|
From page 45... ...
Although he recognizes! from the beginning the exciting potential of molecular beams for the study of elementary chemical reactions, Dick approached the new field with his distinctive thoroughness, starting with elastic collision processes, then moving to inelastic collisions, en c!
|
From page 46... ...
and its consequences are best viewed in a quantum mechanical context. At the time, quantum mechanical scattering theory was in the hands of nuclear physicists and was almost totally unknown to chemists.
|
From page 47... ...
Inelastic scattering was one of the stops on Dick's road map to studying chemical reactions as collisional events. His group's early experiments on total scattering cross-sections hac!
|
From page 48... ...
velocity analysis quickly established a new "gold standard" for reactive scattering studies. Dick's group was able, for the first time in a scattering experiment, to determine clirectly the energy partition between translational en c!
|
From page 49... ...
Some way of studying more general classes of reactions was required to play out the full potential of the scattering approach to chemical reactions. With this in mind, Dick decided to develop an apparatus with "universal detection." His early work in mass spectrometry served him well in the design of a detector based on ionization by electron impact, followed by mass spectrometry.
|
From page 50... ...
share the Nobel Prize in chemistry with John Polanyi. With his alertness to any potentiality for more incisive probing of energetic or steric effects in reactions, Dick clecided soon after the appearance of high-energy lasers to try to influence the course of reactions by letting the collicling molecules absorb light the very instant they were collicling.
|
From page 51... ...
seminal set of studies. The stucly of steric effects in reaction dynamics is now a biannual international conference, the first one being hell!
|
From page 52... ...
The reason is that the natural time scale for chemical events is the typically very fast vibrational motion of the atoms. However, by the micI-!
|
From page 53... ...
them with, "I have seen my own heart beating in real time." PRINCIPAL AWARDS AND HONORS 1968 Elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences 1970 Elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and ~ ~clences 1981 The American Chemical Society's Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry National Academy of Sciences Award in the Chemical ~ ~clences 1986 Sherman Fairchild distinguished scholar, California Institute of Technology 1988 The American Chemical Society's Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics Honorary doctorate in science, University of Chicago Robert A Welch Award in Chemistry 1989 The American Chemical Society's Willard Gibbs Medal National Medal of Science NOTES 1.
|
From page 54... ...
Total collision cross sections for the interaction of atomic beams of alkali metals with gases.
|
From page 55... ...
Energy disposal and energy consumption in elementary chemical reactions: The information theoretic approach.
|
From page 56... ...
Molecular Reaction Dynamics and Chemical Reactivity. London: Oxford University Press.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.