John Lennard-Jones - Life in Overview

Life in Overview

• 1894 Born in Leigh, Lancashire, as John Edward Jones, and educated at Leigh Grammar School where he specialised in classics.
• 1912 Studied mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Manchester
• 1915–18 First World War service in the Royal Flying Corps
• 1919–22 Studies for Doctor of Science degree and lectures in Mathematics at Manchester University.
• 1922 Receives Doctor of Science degree at Manchester
• 1922–4 Research student with a Senior 1851 Exhibition at Trinity College, Cambridge, supervised by Ralph H. Fowler. Sydney Chapman, then Professor of Mathematics at Manchester, had been a Lecturer at Trinity in 1914, and advised Jones to apply there.
• 1924 Receives Doctor of Science degree at Cambridge. Proposes a semi-empirical interatomic force law.
• 1925 Marries Kathleen Lennard, adding his wife's surname to his own to become Lennard-Jones.
• 1925–32 Professor of Theoretical Physics, Bristol University
• 1929 Paper introduces the Linear Combination of Atomic Orbitals approximation for molecular orbitals
• 1929 Brings to Bristol Gerhard Herzberg (1971 Nobel Laureate for chemistry) to study spectra of di- & poly-atomic molecules.
• 1930–2 Dean of the Faculty of Science, Bristol University
• 1931 Paper introduces method for the atomic Self-Consistent Field (SCF) equations. Proposes the Lennard-Jones potential.
• 1932–53 John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, Cambridge University. Founded the theoretical chemistry section of Cambridge University Chemical Laboratory.
• 1934 Paper applies group theory to explain energies & structures of hydrocarbon free radicals
• 1933 Elected a fellow of the Royal Society
• 1934 Graduate student Charles Coulson (in 1972 Oxford University's first Professor of Theoretical Chemistry) completes PhD
• 1937 Paper on conjugated hydrocarbons
• 1937 First Director of Cambridge University Mathematical Laboratory (now Cambridge University Computing Laboratory) with Maurice Wilkes as researcher.
• 1939 At outbreak of war, seconded as Chief Superintendent of Armament Research to the Ministry of Supply which took over the mathematical laboratory for ballistics calculations, developed a team of mathematicians for this purpose.
• 1942–5 Director-General of Scientific Research (Defence), Ministry of Supply
• 1942–7 Member of the Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
• 1946 Knighted (KBE), returns to Cambridge
• 1947–53 Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council at the Ministry of Supply
• 1948–50 President of the Faraday Society
• 1949 Paper justifies use of diatomic orbitals only for valence electrons by showing the determinantal wave function to be invariant under unitary transformations that could accurately transform molecular orbitals into localized equivalent orbitals.
• 1950 Paper completely defines molecular orbitals as eigenfunctions of the SCF Hamiltonian
• 1951 Graduate student John Pople (1998 Nobel Laureate for chemistry) completes PhD
• 1953 Awarded Royal Society's Davy Medal for work applying quantum mechanics to the theory of valency and analysis of the structure of chemical compounds
• 1953 Succeeds Alexander Lindsay as Principal of the University College of North Staffordshire (now Keele University). Corresponds with Linus Pauling about the need in England for more universities and institutes of technology.
• 1954 Honorary doctorate of science, Oxford University; dies in Stoke-on-Trent, aged 60.