| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
His first major contribution was a theory of approximate molecular orbitalIn quantum chemistry, molecular orbitals are the statistical states electrons can have within molecules. Molecular orbitals are formed by the combination of atomic orbitals. It's next to impossible to find out what the orbitals of a molecule are directly. (MO) calculations on pi electron systems in 19531953 is a common year starting on Thursday (click on link for the calendar). Events January events January 7 President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. January 13 Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugosl, identical to the one developed by Rudolph PariserRudolph Pariser (born December 8, 1923) is a physical chemist and polymer chemist. He was born in Harbin, China, but became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America in 1944. He received the Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Ca and Robert G. ParrRobert Ghormley Parr (born September 22, 1921) is a theoretical chemist. He received his A. degree magna cum laude from Brown University in 1942 and his Ph. in physical chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1947. He joined the faculty at Minnesota in the same year, and now called the Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP) method. Subsequently, he developed the methods of Complete Neglect of Differential Overlap (CNDO) (in 19651965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). Events January-February January 4 United States President Lyndon Johnson proclaims his " Great Society" during his State of the Union address. January 14 Prime Ministers of N) and Intermediate Neglect of Differential Overlap (INDO) (shortly later) for approximate MO calculations on three-dimensional molecules, and other developments in computational chemistry. He pioneered the development of more sophisticated computational methods, so called ab initio methods, that used basis sets of either Slater type orbitals or Gaussian orbitals to model the wave function. While in the early days these calculations were extremely expensive to perform, the advent of high speed microprocessors has made them much more feasible today. He was instrumental in the development of one of the most widely used computational chemistry packages, the " GAUSSIAN"(tm) suite of programs. However, since 1991, Pople was excluded from development of the software. In fact, he was actually banned by Gaussian from even using their software.
In 1986 he moved from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his earlier accomplishments were made, to Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. He was knighted in 2003.