Walter Kohn
| Walter Kohn | |
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Kohn in 2012
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| Born | March 9, 1923 Vienna, Austria |
| Died | 19 April 2016 (aged 93) Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Physics, Chemistry |
| Institutions | UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto, Harvard |
| Doctoral advisor | Julian Schwinger |
| Known for | Density functional theory |
| Notable awards |
Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (1961) National Medal of Science (1988) Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1998) |
| Spouse | Lois (Adams) Mara (Vishniac) Schiff |
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Walter Kohn (March 9, 1923 – April 19, 2016) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the understandings of the electronic properties of materials. In particular, Kohn played the leading role in the development of density functional theory, which made it possible to calculate quantum mechanical electronic structure by equations involving the electronic density (rather than the many-body wavefunction). This computational simplification led to more accurate calculations on complex systems as well as many new insights, and it has become an essential tool for materials science, condensed-phase physics, and the chemical physics of atoms and molecules.
Kohn arrived in England as part of the famous Kindertransport rescue operation, immediately after the annexation of Austria by Hitler. He was from a Jewish family, and has written, "My feelings towards Austria, my native land, are – and will remain – very painful. They are dominated by my vivid recollections of 1 1/2 years as a Jewish boy under the Nazi regime, and by the subsequent murder of my parents, Salomon and Gittel Kohn, of other relatives and several teachers, during the Holocaust. ... I want to mention that I have a strong Jewish identity and – over the years – have been involved in several Jewish projects, such as the establishment of a strong program of Judaic Studies at the University of California in San Diego."
Because he was a German national, he was sent to Canada by the English in July 1940. As a 17-year-old, Kohn traveled as part of a British convoy moving through U-boat-infested waters to Quebec City in Canada; and from there, by train, to a camp in Trois-Rivières. He was at first held in detention in a camp near Sherbrooke, Quebec. This camp, as well as others, provided a small number of educational facilities that Kohn used to the fullest, and he finally succeeded in entering the University of Toronto. As a German national, the future Nobel Laureate in Chemistry was not allowed to enter the chemistry building, and so he opted for physics and mathematics.
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