Biographical Memoirs Volume 78 (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Robert Sanderson Mulliken
Robert Sanderson Mulliken
Pages 146-165
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From page 147... ...
From the beginning of his career as an inclepenclent scientist in the micI1920s until he publisher! his last scientific papers in the early 1980s, he guided an entire field through his penetrating solutions of outstanding puzzles, his iclentification (or discovery en c!
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From page 148... ...
He then took on a wartime job studying poison gases in a laboratory at American University uncler the direction of a certain Lieutenant James Bryant Conant, then of the Chemical Warfare Service. Mulliken entered the Chemical Warfare Service himself, rising to private first class, but left the service when he contracted!
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From page 149... ...
R Oppenheimer, John Van VIeck, Gregory Breit, HaroIcl Urey, en cl John Slater.
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From page 150... ...
But, as soon as they knew of the matrix mechanics of Heisenberg en c! the wave mechanics of Schroclinger, both realizecl that wouIcl be the correct direction for them.
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From page 151... ...
the oic! quantum theory, en cl molecular orbitals were born.
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From page 152... ...
Robert held a Guggenheim Fellowship at that time and decided to split it into two six-month segments. The first, in the spring of 1930, must have been the honeymoon that Mary Helen claimed to be the birthing time of molecular orbital theory.
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From page 153... ...
in interpreting molecular spectra, writing a series of articles on the halogen molecules en cl another series for Reviews of Modern Physics, which gave molecular electronic spectroscopy the coherence he hacl been seeking since the early ~ 920s. Mulliken notecl in 1965 that he clicl not bother to go to a "screaming, roaring speech" by Aclolf Hitler.
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From page 154... ...
D Harkins, en cl Sewell Wright circulatecl the famous letter to the President endorsing the Rye Conference report, which took a position strongly opposing the May-{ohnson bill to put very tight controls on all information as well as materials concerning nuclear energy.
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From page 155... ...
The last series he wrote became remarkably influential, changing much of the interpretation of molecular spectra in the ultraviolet, this set of seven papers dealt with molecular RyUberg spectra, spectra in which one electron is excited to an orbit (strictly, orbital or stancIing wave state) large enough to be well outside the core former!
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From page 156... ...
These were used for fairly high resolution spectroscopy until the advent of laser techniques, which came into use just when the Laboratory of Molecular Structure and Spectroscopy (LMSS) was discontinuing experimental work.
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From page 157... ...
He foresaw the role that computers could fill in transforming quantum mechanics of molecules from a formal analytic representation and a device for solving simple models into a quantitative too! with powerful predictive capabilities.
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From page 158... ...
One of Robert's favorite stories of this phenomenon concerns Professor Saburo Nagakura, later the director of the Institute for Molecular Science at Okazaki, Japan, en cl then a university president in Japan. Robert had written to Nagakura, already a professor, asking whether the latter had anyone he couIcl recommencl to come to Chicago as a postcloctoral associate to clo experimental work.
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From page 159... ...
en cl at Chicago, Enrico saicl without hesitation that Chicago's were the best in the world, "after all," he said, "you are customers! " Clemens Roothaan was in charge of the Computation Center, always a zealous believer that users shouIcl unclerstancl how their machines operate, he was a strong, encouraging influence for aspiring scientists for whom such knowlecige wouIcl enable them to use computers at the limits of their capabilities, but seemec!
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From page 160... ...
At lunch at the Quadrangle Club early that fall of 1970, shortly after his return, Robert turned to me en cl saicI, with the naive wonderment so characteristic of his discussions, "You know, I don't think I understand molecular orbitals very well." This, from one of the three people who clicl most to clevelop the concept of molecular orbitals en cl integrate them into all the thinking about molecular structure since the late 1920s. The roll of scientists who worked in his group illustrates what an institution Robert Mulliken created.
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From page 161... ...
He once clescribecl to me how he went through a personal realization of this, by saying, "That's when I became human." THE AUTHOR THANKS Michael Kasha for his helpful comments and for the photograph that accompanies this memoir.
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From page 162... ...
2:60-115. 1932 Electronic structures of polyatomic molecules and valence.
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From page 163... ...
Parr. LCAO molecular orbital computations of resonance energies of benzene and butadiene with general analysis of theoretical versus thermochemical resonance energies.
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From page 164... ...
Polyatomic Molecules. Results of ab Initio Calculations.
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