Polanyi John Charles
Winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Academic titles:
- professor doctor of science
Membership in the Academy:
- corresponding member – Department of Mathematical, Physical and Chemical sciences (12/3/1992 – …)
Curriculum Vitae
John Charles Polanyi, born January 23 in Berlin, is a Canadian chemist of Hungarian descent. In 1933, his family moved out of Germany to the UK. He graduated in 1949 and received his Doctorate in 1952 from the University of Manchester. Since 1952, he has been a researcher in the laboratory of the National Research Council in Ottawa, has been a lecturer since 1956, and since 1962 he has been a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto. He distinguished himself by researching chemical dynamics, studying the distribution of energy between chemical species formed after collisions and participation in the reaction. He developed the technique of so-called infrared chemiluminescence, which is based on the observation that molecules emit infrared radiation after excitation. For these studies, in 1986, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with D. R. Herschbach and Y. T. Lee. He was the founder and first president of the Canadian Pugwash Committee in 1960, and served as president until 1978, believing in the need to involve scientists in social issues, pointing to survival problems in the age of nuclear weapons and the management of other equally powerful technologies. He received a D. Sc. degree, honoris causa, from numerous universities in the world. He has received many awards and a member of many academies.
He has been a correspondent member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1992.