TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 9 of Nye's book is devoted to Quantum chemistry and chemical physics, 1920 1950 , with sections on the application of quantum mechanics to molecules in the 1920s, chemists and quantum mechanics in the 1920s and 1930s, and quantum chemistry and chemical physics in the 1930s and 1940s.
It seems useful to list biographical material that is available for some of the pioneers in the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry, particularly organic chemistry, with a few comments. R. S. Mulliken (1896 1986) is best known for his share in the creation of molecular orbital theory. He was associated with the University of Chicago for most of his career, [350] , [351] and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1966. Mulliken traced the path to molecular orbital theory in a lecture [352] given in 1970. He wrote an autobiography that was published posthumously. [353]
J. E. Lennard-Jones (1894 1954) is also remembered for his contribution to the development of molecular orbital theory. [354] His Cambridge pupil, C. A. Coulson (1910 1974), carried out much pioneering work in the application of molecular orbital theory to chemistry, particularly organic chemistry. [355] Much of this work was before the advent of sophisticated calculations using computers, but Coulson helped greatly to establish the basis upon which such calculations are performed. He was associated with various universities at different times, but for the last twenty years of his life he held Chairs in Oxford. His book Valence (1952)...
