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John Pople
1925–2004 · United Kingdom · Born 1900–1939
Nobel Chemistry 1998
Developed computational methods and the Gaussian program that made quantum chemistry a practical tool for chemists.
Nobel-winning work
Pople developed the methods and the program that made electronic-structure computation a routine research tool: standardized basis sets, ab initio and semiempirical schemes, and composite “model chemistries” such as Gaussian-2 for accurate thermochemistry. His Gaussian software opened quantum-mechanical prediction of structure, spectra and reactivity to chemists everywhere. Shared with Walter Kohn (density functional theory), the prize marked the coming of age of computational chemistry.