Professor John C. Polanyi
A Brief Biography
Prof. John C. Polanyi is the son of renowned chemist and scientific philosopher, Michael Polanyi. Prof. J. C. Polanyi completed his PhD at Manchester University in England. He went on to take postdoctoral fellowships at the National Research Council in Canada (1952-54) and then Princeton University (until 1956). He returned to Canada in 1956 to become a lecturer at University of Toronto and is currently a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry.
In 1986 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, sharing the prize, worth just over $400,000 Cdn., with Dudley Herschbach of Harvard University and Yuan Lee of the University of California at Berkeley. Prof. Polanyi began the research, for which he received the Nobel Prize, soon after he came to Toronto in 1956. He was interested in analyzing the motions and distribution of energy of the molecules formed during collisions resulting from chemical reactions in gases and at surfaces.
In addition to the recognition afforded him by the Swedish Academy of Sciences (SAS - it is the SAS from whom laureates receive official news of their prize), Prof. Polanyi has also been made a Companion of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Canada and London, and the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
Furthermore, he was the founding Chairman of the Canadian Pugwash Group in 1960. He has written extensively on peacekeeping, armaments control and science policy, including co-editing The Dangers of Nuclear War. He is also President of the Canadian Committee for Scientists and Scholars and gives much of his time to international human rights initiatives.
NB: Be sure to bring your questions for Prof. Polanyi on Thursday. This is an unique opportunity, which has been arranged specifically for you, to ask a Nobel Laureate how the prize has affected his research and his life as well as about the work he is currently doing.
Be sure to go over the Einstein reading before Thursday's lecture.
- Prof. M. Stevens
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