Herschbach, Lee and Polanyi Receive 1986 Chemistry Nobel

For “contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dudley R. Herschbach (Harvard), Yuan T. Lee (Berkeley) and John C. Polanyi (University of Toronto). Their research in chemical physics—specifically reaction dynamics—is basic to a detailed understanding of chemical reactions. The award honors the development of two important techniques for probing what happens when molecules collide and atoms rearrange themselves to form new molecules. These techniques, crossed molecular beams and infrared chemiluminescence, provide a basis for the determination of the potential energy surfaces of specific reactions.