David Chandler. 15 October 1944—18 April 2017

Abstract

David Chandler, a major figure in statistical mechanics, spent his career at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California Berkeley. Starting in his graduate work, he made significant advances in many areas of statistical mechanics theory, such as the structure and thermodynamics of simple liquids and nonpolar molecular liquids, the nature of hydrophobic hydration and hydrophobic interactions in aqueous systems, chemical reaction rates, quantum processes in liquids such as electron transfer and the solvation of an excess electron in water, ‘transition path sampling’ (a method for using computer simulations to study chemical reaction rates and other dynamic processes in liquids), and the ‘dynamic facilitation’ theory of the properties of supercooled liquids and the glass transition. He received the Hildebrand Award and the Theoretical Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society and the Irving Langmuir Chemical Physics Award from the American Physical Society. He was elected to membership in the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.