Francis Boys
| Frank Boys | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Samuel Francis Boys 20 December 1911 Pudsey, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 16 October 1972 (aged 60) Cambridge, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater |
|
| Known for |
Gaussian orbitals ab initio quantum chemistry methods |
| Awards | FRS (1972) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical chemistry |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral advisor | Martin Lowry |
| Doctoral students | Nicholas C. Handy |
(Samuel) Francis (Frank) Boys FRS (20 December 1911 – 16 October 1972) was a British theoretical chemist.
Boys was born in Pudsey, Yorkshire, England. He was educated at the Grammar School in Pudsey and then at Imperial College London. He graduated in Chemistry in 1932. He did his PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, supervised first by Professor Martin Lowry, and then, after Lowry's death in 1936, by Sir John Lennard-Jones.
In 1938, Boys was appointed an Assistant Lecturer in Mathematical Physics at Queen's University Belfast. He spent the whole of the Second World War working on explosives research with the Ministry of Supply at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, with Lennard-Jones as his supervisor. After the war, Boys accepted an ICI Fellowship at Imperial College, London. In 1949, he was appointed to a Lectureship in theoretical chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He remained at Cambridge until his death. He was only elected to a Cambridge College Fellowship at University College, now Wolfson College, Cambridge, shortly before his death.
Boys is best known for the introduction of Gaussian orbitals into ab initio quantum chemistry. Almost all basis sets used in computational chemistry now employ these orbitals. Frank Boys was also one of the first scientists to use digital computers for calculations on polyatomic molecules.
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