The theoretical solid-state physicist Walter Kohn was awarded one-half of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his mid-1960s creation of an approach to the many-particle problem in quantum mechanics called density functional theory (DFT). In its exact form, DFT establishes that the total charge density of any system of electrons and nuclei provides all the information needed for a complete description of that system. This was a breakthrough for the study of atoms, molecules, gases, liquids, and solids. Before DFT, it was thought that knowledge of the vastly more complicated many-electron wave function was essential for a complete description of such systems. Today, 50 years after its introduction, DFT (in one of its approximate forms) is the method of choice used by most scientists to calculate the physical properties of materials of all kinds. In this paper, I present a biographical essay of Kohn’s educational experiences and professional career up to and including the creation of DFT. My account begins with Kohn’s student years in Austria, England, and Canada during World War II and continues with his graduate and postgraduate training at Harvard University and Niels Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. I then study the research choices he made during the first 10 years of his career (when he was a faculty member at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and a frequent visitor to the Bell Telephone Laboratories) in the context of the theoretical solid-state physics agenda of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Subsequent sections discuss his move to the University of California, San Diego, identify the research issue which led directly to DFT, and analyze the two foundational papers of the theory. The paper concludes with an explanation of how the chemists came to award “their” Nobel Prize to the physicist Kohn and a discussion of why he was unusually well suited to create the theory in the first place.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Scheffler, Matthias;
Weinberger, Peter;
(2003)
Walter Kohn: Personal Stories and Anecdotes Told by Friends and Collaborators
(/isis/citation/CBB000410943/)
Book
Schweber, Silvan S.;
(2012)
Nuclear Forces: The Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe
(/isis/citation/CBB001201092/)
Article
Morrison, Margaret;
(2007)
Spin: All Is Not What It Seems
(/isis/citation/CBB000701045/)
Article
French, A. P.;
(2008)
In Memoriam: Philip Morrison
(/isis/citation/CBB000932025/)
Article
Oppenheimer, Frank;
(2013)
A Physicist for All Seasons: Part I
(/isis/citation/CBB001320402/)
Article
Eling, Paul;
(2013)
Neuroanniversary 2013
(/isis/citation/CBB001320616/)
Article
Zeldes, Nissan;
(2009)
Giulio Racah and Theoretical Physics in Jerusalem
(/isis/citation/CBB000932079/)
Article
Causá, Mauro;
Savin, Andreas;
Silvi, Bernard;
(2014)
Atoms and Bonds in Molecules and Chemical Explanations
(/isis/citation/CBB001321116/)
Article
Crompton, R. W.;
Dracoulis, G. D.;
Lewis, B. R.;
McCracken, K. G.;
Williams, J. S.;
(2011)
John Henry Carver 1926--2004
(/isis/citation/CBB001033727/)
Book
Byrne, Peter;
(2010)
The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family
(/isis/citation/CBB001022747/)
Article
Julia Harriet Menzel;
(2021)
Wilsonian Renormalization in the 1970s: Labor Markets, Geopolitics, and the Rise of a New Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB977754516/)
Article
Ray Withers;
Jeffrey Sellar;
Michael O'Keeffe;
Stephen Hyde;
(2015)
Bruce Godfrey Hyde 1925–2014
(/isis/citation/CBB621206254/)
Book
Segrè, Gino;
(2007)
Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB000800093/)
Article
Kauffman, George B.;
Kauffman, Laurie M.;
(2002)
Observing the Femtoworld of Molecules: The 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
(/isis/citation/CBB001252532/)
Article
Kauffman, George B.;
(2004)
Robert B. Woodward: Organic Synthesizer par excellence---On the 25th Anniversary of His Death
(/isis/citation/CBB001252538/)
Article
Kauffman, George B.;
(2004)
Sir William Ramsay: Noble Gas Pioneer---On the 100th Anniversary of His Nobel Prize
(/isis/citation/CBB001252541/)
Book
Jenkin, John;
(2008)
William and Lawrence Bragg, Father and Son: The Most Extraordinary Collaboration in Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000830466/)
Book
Redniss, Lauren;
(2011)
Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout
(/isis/citation/CBB001252734/)
Book
Rob van den Berg;
(2021)
Een gedreven buitenstaander. J.H. van 't Hoff, de eerste Nobelprijswinnaar voor scheikunde [A driven outsider: J.H. van 't Hoff, the first Nobel Prize winner in chemistry]
(/isis/citation/CBB831847072/)
Article
Helge Kragh;
(2022)
Chemists Without Knowing It? Computational Chemistry and the Møller-Plesset Perturbation Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB663914589/)
Be the first to comment!