Polanyi << puh LAHN yee >>, John Charles (1929-…), a German-born Canadian physical chemist, advanced the study of chemical reactions by means of the infrared radiation (heat) that they emit. He shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry with the American scientists Dudley R. Herschbach and Yuan T. Lee, who had used different approaches to similar problems. Polanyi also was active in issues of public policy and arms control.
Polanyi studied the behavior of atoms during chemical reactions by analyzing the radiation that those atoms emitted. In chemical reactions, atoms combine and separate by rearrangements of electrons, the negatively charged particles that make up the outer regions of all atoms. When an electron loses energy, the energy may be given out in the form of visible light or invisible wavelengths, including the longer-wave infrared radiations. This process is called chemiluminescence. See Luminescence.
Polanyi discovered that infrared chemiluminescence could reveal the details of the stages that a reaction went through. He could learn about temporary clusterings of atoms that would form briefly before breaking up into the products that conventional chemistry could observe. These short-lived objects could store energy as they vibrated or rotated, before shedding it in the form of infrared radiation.
Polanyi was also active in organizations concerned with academic freedom, with arms control and disarmament, and with the relations between science and society.
Polanyi was born in Berlin, Germany, on Jan. 23, 1929. He was the son of Michael Polanyi, a Hungarian chemist at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in that city. In 1933, John’s family took him to the United Kingdom to escape the political situation in Germany. He studied chemistry at Manchester University, where he received a Ph.D. degree in 1952, and then carried out research in Canada and the United States. He became a professor at the University of Toronto in 1956. He helped set up the first Canadian Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in 1960. He became a Canadian citizen in about 1965. In 1974, he was appointed an Officer, and in 1979, a Companion, of the Order of Canada. Appointment to the order is one of Canada’s highest civilian honors.
