Warshel, Arieh (1940–…), an Israeli-American chemist, shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry for creating computer models of complex chemical systems. Warshel developed the models in cooperation with the other winners. They are the Austrian-American chemist Martin Karplus and the biologist Michael Levitt .
Modern computer simulations are based on two different models of physics . They are classical Newtonian physics—pioneered by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton —and quantum physics . Newtonian physics describes the interaction of matter and energy on scales larger than single atoms . But quantum physics must be used to understand interactions on subatomic scales, scales smaller than atoms.
Some of the earliest computer models used Newtonian physics to model large molecules at rest. Other early models used quantum physics to show chemical reactions between smaller molecules. Both types of programs were limited by the available computing power. Modelling a reaction between large molecules could take days with the technology in use at the time.
In the late 1960’s, Warshel was pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Working together, he and Levitt devised a computer program to model larger molecules using Newtonian physics. After receiving his degree, Warshel in 1970 joined a lab run by Karplus at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Karplus was working to develop models of chemical reactions using quantum physics.
By 1972, Karplus and Warshel had together developed a program that combined the two types of physics. Their program modeled large molecules using Newtonian physics. But it modeled key parts of such molecules using quantum physics. The program could thus model certain large molecules undergoing chemical reactions. Warshel and Levitt later reunited to further develop computer models. They created a program that could model large molecules undergoing a chemical reaction.
Warshel was born on Nov. 20, 1940, in Kibbutz Sde-Nahum, in what is now northern Israel. He served in the Israeli army before attending school at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. In 1966, he received a B.S. degree in chemistry. He received an M.S. degree in 1967 and a Ph.D. degree in 1969 from the Weizmann Institute. Warshel joined the University of Southern California in 1976.
