Nobel Laureate Dies

Walter Kohn, a theoretical physicist who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has passed away at age 93.

Written byCatherine Offord

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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 ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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