Molecules in Motion: Chemical Reaction and Allied Dynamics in Solution and Elsewhere

Abstract

After my acceptance of the kind invitation from Todd Martínez and Mark Johnson, Co-Editors of this journal, to write this article, I had to decide just how to actually do this, given the existence of a fairly personal and extended autobiographical account of recent vintage detailing my youth, education, and assorted experiences and activities at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and later also at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris ( 1 ). In the end, I settled on a differently styled recounting of the adventures with my students, postdocs, collaborators, and colleagues in trying to unravel, comprehend, describe, and occasionally even predict the manifestations and consequences of the myriad assortment of molecular dances that contribute to and govern the rates and mechanisms of chemical reactions in solution (and elsewhere). The result follows.