Early Life/childhood Scientific career/ Claim to fame Major
Scientific contributions Death 19252004 Nobel prize 1998 1935
Education 1951 Love life/Family Life LIFE CHRONOLOGY
Slide 18
Early Life/Childhood Born on October 31, 1925 in the
Burnham-on- Sea, Somerset, England
Slide 19
Early Life/Childhood Father, Keith Pople owned a clothing shop
Mother, Mary Jones served as a tutor to the area's wealthy families
also worked as an Army librarian during World War I
Slide 20
Early Life/Childhood At age 12 developed an intense interest in
mathematics He rescued a calculus book from the trash and read it
cover to cover At age 13 started some research projects on
formulating the theory of permutations
Slide 21
Education Attended Bristol Grammar School 30 miles away from
Poples home
Slide 22
Education During World War II shipping port of Bristol was
frequently bombed by enemy raid classes were held in deep
underground bunkers.
Slide 23
Education 1943 earn a math scholarship to Cambridge
University's Trinity College first member of his family to attend
college
Slide 24
Education 1945 earned his mathematics degree Took a job with
the Bristol Aeroplane Company 1951 earned his doctoral degree in
mathematics in 1951
Slide 25
Scientific Career 1958 worked as a research fellow and
mathematics lecturer at Cambridge head of the physics division of
England's National Physical Laboratory
Slide 26
Scientific Career 1964 teaching chemical physics at
Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute of Technology (Carnegie-Mellon
University)
Slide 27
Scientific Career Pople concentrated his efforts on exploring
the electronic structure of molecules Research culminated in a
computer program called Gaussian-70
Slide 28
Major Scientific Contributions Statistical mechanics of water
Nuclear magnetic resonance Semi-empirical theory MO Theory
Developed methods of Complete Neglect of Differential Overlap
(CNDO) and Intermediate Neglect of Differential Overlap (INDO) for
approximate MO calculations on three-dimensional
moleculesCNDOINDO
Slide 29
Major Scientific Contributions Ab initio electronic structure
theory Ab initio quantum chemistry methods Gaussian computer
program -widely used used in chemical research from pharmaceuticals
to plastics Founder of the Q-Chem computational chemistry
program.
Slide 30
Scientific Awards and Honors Smith Prize (Cambridge, 1950),
Marlow Medal (Faraday Society, 1958) Irving Langmuir Award
(American Chemical Society, 1970) Harrison Howe Award (American
Chemical Society, 1971) Gilbert Newton Lewis Award (American
Chemical Society, 1973) Pittsburgh Award (American Chemical
Society, 1975)
Slide 31
Scientific Awards and Honors Morley Award (American Chemical
Society, 1976) Pauling Award (American Chemical Society, 1977)
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior U.S. Scientist Award
(1981) G. Willard Wheland Award (University of Chicago, 1981) Evans
Award (Ohio State University, 1982) Oesper Award (University of
Cincinnati, 1984) Davy Medal (Royal Society, 1988)
Slide 32
Scientific Awards and Honors 1998 received the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry along with Walter Kohn for work on computational
methodology in quantum chemistry 2003 Knight Commander (KBE) of the
Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
Slide 33
Love Life/Family Life Took up the piano lesson hired Joy Bowers
to instruct him 1952 Pople and Joy married Has one daughter, Hilary
and three sons Adrian, Mark, and Andrew Has eleven grandchildren,
and a great- granddaughter
Slide 34
Death 2002 Wife died of cancer March 15,2004 Pople died of
liver cancer
Slide 35
I must emphasize that my contribution to quantum chemistry has
depended hugely on work by others. The international community in
our field is a close one, meeting frequently and exchanging ideas
freely. I am delighted to have had students, friends and colleagues
in so many nations and to have learned so much of what I know from
them. This Nobel Award honours them all.
