Pople, John Anthony (1925-2004), a British theoretical chemist, pioneered the use of computers for predicting the behavior of molecules in chemical reactions. He won the 1998 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry. Pople shared the prize with the Austrian-born American chemist, Walter Kohn (see Kohn, Walter ). Pople made major advances in adapting mathematics and physics to the study of chemistry and developed computer programs that are used for chemical calculations throughout the world.
Pople was born on Oct. 31, 1925, in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, in southwest England. He obtained a Ph.D. in mathematics at Cambridge University, England, in 1951. In 1964, after moving to the United States, he became professor of chemical physics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1993, he became professor of chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Pople based his work on quantum mechanics, a theory that explains the behavior of molecules in terms of the motions and energies of electrons (see Quantum mechanics ). Scientists use the theory to predict what will happen in chemical reactions. But because vast numbers of electrons may be involved in the reactions, the equations become too complicated to solve by traditional methods.
In 1970, Pople developed a computer program called Gaussian, that could quickly and accurately predict how different molecules would interact. The program has become a standard scientific tool, with uses in such areas as university research, chemical engineering, medicine, and the development of new drugs. Pople was knighted in 2003. He died on March 15, 2004.
