[Deathwatch] Sir John Pople, Nobel laureate, 78

[Deathwatch Central]

Nobel laureate Sir John Pople dies at age 78

CHICAGO (AP) — Nobel laureate John Pople, who won the prestigious prize
in 1998 for his development of computational methods in quantum
chemistry, has died. He was 78.

Pople, a British citizen who joined the faculty of Northwestern
University in 1986, died Monday of liver cancer at the Chicago home of
his daughter, Hilary Pople, his family said.

Pople shared the 1998 Nobel in chemistry with Australian Walter Kohn of
the University of California-Santa Barbara, who was cited for
development of density-functional theory in the 1960s. It simplifies
the mathematical description of the bonding between atoms that make up
molecules.

Pople was cited for developing computer techniques to test the chemical
structure and details of matter. The resulting computer program is used
by thousands of universities and companies worldwide. In the 1990s, he
refined the program to include Kohn's density-functional theory.

His approach allows scientists to create computer models of chemical
reactions that are difficult or impossible to recreate in the
laboratory. It has a wide range of applications, from studying
interstellar matter based on telescope measurements of its chemical
signatures and how pollutants such as freon react with the ozone layer.


In medicine, researchers use Pople's quantum chemistry methods to
simulate the effects of proposed drugs to fight HIV infection.

Pople was born in 1925 in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset. He earned a
doctorate in mathematics from Cambridge in 1951. By 1952, he formulated
his basic plan for developing mathematical models for studying
molecules without performing experiments.

He headed the Basic Physics Division at the National Physical
Laboratory near London but grew dissatisfied with the time needed for
administrative work and moved to the United States in 1958.

In 1964, he became professor of chemical physics at Carnegie Tech,
which later become Carnegie-Mellon University.

Queen Elizabeth II made him a Knight of the British Empire in 2002 for
his services to chemistry.

Pople's wife of 49 years, Joy Bowers, died two years ago. Survivors in
addition to his daughter are three sons, Adam, Mark and Andrew; a
brother; 11 grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

A memorial service is planned for March 29 in Evanston.