Walter Kohn at the 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting, July 2012WIKIMEDIA, MARKUS PÖSSEL
Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Walter Kohn, best known for his pioneering work in quantum chemistry, died earlier this month (April 19) at his home in California. He was 93.
Born in 1923 to Jewish parents in Vienna, Kohn spent part of his childhood with a surrogate family in the U.K. after Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938. Following several moves between internment camps, Kohn emigrated to Canada in 1940, where he completed a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in applied mathematics at the University of Toronto in 1945 and 1946, respectively.
After earning a PhD in physics at Harvard in 1948, Kohn turned his attention to solid state physics with a focus on semiconductors. From 1950 to 1960, as a researcher at Carnegie ...
