Early Years
John Polanyi
John Charles Polanyi was born on January 23 1929 in Berlin Germany. When he was four, his family, which was Jewish, moved to England to escape persecution by Hitler. When he was 11, he was sent to Canada, again to escape the Nazis. He was in Canada for three years, and then he returned to England and finished high school. While in high school, he disliked following instructions for experiments, just to get the intended result. He instead fiddled around with different variables just to see what would happen. This got him into trouble, and his teachers said that he did not have the disciplne needed to learn. They apparently were wrong, as he obtained a Ph.D in 1952, at the age of just 23.
Research
John Polanyi
Polanyi at first did not want to be a chemist. In fact, he considered being a poet, of all things, but, he eventually realized that his true calling was chemistry. He began to study chemical kinetics which is basically the study of how atoms move during reactions. He was especially was intersted in chemiluminescence, the glowing of atoms during reactions. At one point, he worked in the lab of Gerhard Herzberg, another famous Canadian chemist.
DIscoveries and Publications
It was partly through Polanyi's work that lasers, such as these, came into being.
Polanyi has published over 250 papers in his time and has co-authored a book (the book is not on science per se, but on The Dangers of Nuclear War, its title). He made many important dicoveries in the fields of nanotechnology and chemical kinetics, and it was in part through his work that lasers came into being.
Other
A postcard from the Pugwash conferences. Polanyi helped found Pugwash.
Polanyi is a great peace activist. He helped found an organization called Pugwash which exists mostly to combat war, especially nuclear war. He also, as mentioned above, published a book against nuclear war. All in all, Polanyi is not only a great chemist, but a great man.
Sources
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Charles_Polanyi
www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=16
www.encyclopedia.com/topic/John_Charles_Polanyi.aspx
www.utoronto.ca/jpolanyi/profile/profile2.html
www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=16
www.encyclopedia.com/topic/John_Charles_Polanyi.aspx
www.utoronto.ca/jpolanyi/profile/profile2.html