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开卷有益：2007年《物理化学年鉴》
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开卷有益：2007年《物理化学年鉴》
2007.10.03
《物理化学年鉴》
《物理化学年鉴》始于1950年，一年一卷（本），今年是第58卷。每卷由20多位物理化学和化学物理领域最好的专家就某一个专题进行综述，是物理化学前沿最重要的参考资料。物理化学家和化学物理学家的最主要的综述文章不是发表在Chemical Review上，就像他们的主要论文不是发表在JACS上一样。
《物理化学年鉴》每卷的第一篇文章是物理化学或化学物理领域最有建树的人的学术自传，这是我除开其中的专题综述之外最喜欢读的部分。从这些文章中可以了解到物理化学和化学物理领域过去100多年里的伟大和光荣的传统，它们在物理化学研究过程中的关键时刻有可能神奇地灵魂附体。
2007年的《物理化学年鉴》（Annual Review of Physical Chemistry）的第一篇文章是C. Bradley Moore学术自传文章《A Spectroscopist's View of Energy States, Energy Transfers, and Chemical Reactions》（ARPC, 58, 1-33, 2007.）。
今年的《物理化学年鉴》中还有一篇杨学明兄的综述文章，题为《State-to-State Dynamics of Elementary Bimolecular Reactions》（ARPC, 58, 433-459, 2007.）这是中国大陆物理化学家继几年前田中群老师的第二篇《物理化学年鉴》综述文章。
Annual Review系列覆盖很多个自然和人文科学的学科，其中最早的是《生物化学年鉴》，于1931年由Stanford大学化学教授J. Murray Luck发起创办。《物理化学年鉴》也是该系列中比较早的。1981年的第50卷的《生物化学年鉴》的第一篇文章就是J. Murray Luck的学术自传，题目叫做《CONFESSIONS OF A BIOCHEMIST》（《一个生物化学家的自白》）。这里就不多说了。
Moore的学术自传
C. Bradley Moore是George Pimentel的学生，分子光谱和能量转移研究的专家，也是最早做激光分离同位素的科学家。Moore于23岁开始在UC Berkeley化学系做助理教授，在Berkeley工作近40年后现为美国西北大学（Northwestern University）的负责学术和研究的副校长。我的博士后导师戴海龙教授1981年从Moore组获得博士学位，不过我虽然见过Moore的很多学生，但从来没有见过Moore本人。中国科大化学物理系的周晓国教授前几年曾经在Moore组做过博士后。
Pimentel就是发明红外化学激光和负责编撰1986年出版的美国国家科学院报告《化学中的机会》（Opportunities in Chemistry:Today and Tomorrow）那位Pimentel，是属于美国科学界颇有影响力的人物。Pimentel的博士导师是物理化学教科书中溶液化学热力学的那个Kenneth Pitzer，后来做过Stanford大学的校长，在1968年的学生运动中被逼迫辞职。
下面一段Moore描写Pimental研究组的话很值得我们的研究生们体会：
“Pimentel's weekly group meeting was always a special learning experience. Everyone learned to be constantly questioning and skeptical of one's data and interpretations, and of the literature, always aware that Mother Nature is constantly setting traps to destroy the credibility of the unwary researcher. Discussions of new results in terms of alternative physical models let us see his exceptional intuitive insight and his strongly supportive mentoring style.”
Moore说在Pimentel的研究小组会上“每个人都学会了不断地质问和怀疑个人的数据和解释以及参考文献，学会了总是要意识到Mother Nature会常常设置陷阱来摧毁粗心研究者的可信性。”我经常在小组会上和讨论中诘问学生的实验结果和数据分析的细节和逻辑，以及要求学生学会诘问文献中的数据和解释。不少学生一开始非常不习惯这种诘问的问题讨论，觉得王老师这个人真烦，连学生都不信任。其实这是因为所有好的科学家都知道Mother Nature经常会逗我们玩，不仔细诘问数据和分析过程，以及参考文献就很容易被骗。
想来Moore从23岁就开始做Berkeley的化学教授，而且研究非常成功，他在Pimental那里受到的博士训练的确非常有效。
下面是Moore的学术自传的第一部分“getting started”，有兴趣的可以找原文来看。
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Annual Review of Physical Chemistry
Vol. 58: 1-33 (Volume publication date May 2007)
(doi:10.1146/annurev.physchem.58.032806.104610)
A Spectroscopist's View of Energy States, Energy Transfers, and Chemical Reactions
C. Bradley Moore-
Office for Research and Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208; email
moorecb@northwestern.edu
GETTING STARTED
I had the good fortune to grow up on a farm in eastern Pennsylvania, where hard work produced good crops, poultry, and livestock; where I could help my father take apart, repair, and reassemble farm equipment; and where I could manufacture and experiment with gun powder. In those days, parents could still give chemistry sets to their children, and the East Coast sky was often clear enough to observe shooting stars while lying flat on the bed of a hay wagon.
This constituted my first spectroscopic observations of chemistry in action. My initial in-class chemistry lab was a study of sulfur combustion carried out by placing a fumigation candle in the ink well of my third-grade desk and lighting it on departure for recess. This early initiative was not encouraged on my return from the playground. One of Princeton Professor Hubert Alyea's renowned lectures on the marvels of chemistry at a nearby high school provided my first look at cryogenics as he exhaled through a mouth full of dry ice. By the time I finished a series of integrated courses in the physical sciences, a one-week visit by J. Robert Oppenheimer, and a challenging course in analytical/inorganic chemistry in high school (Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire), I was well on my way to becoming a physical chemist. The launching of Sputnik during my first month of college (October 1957) at Harvard sharply increased federal funding for scientific research and greatly encouraged scientific career paths. That fall, the intensity of lab courses in physics and organic chemistry, a fourth-semester calculus course, and a humanities course quickly ended my aspiration to extend my high-school crew experience to intercollegiate rowing. A series of research projects in Paul D. Bartlett's personal lab at Harvard and summer jobs at Arthur D. Little and General Electric's corporate research lab deepened my interest and experimental background.
Less than three years after Sputnik, I arrived at Berkeley, newly wed to my high-school sweetheart, Penny Percival, to begin married life, Ph.D. research, and 40 years at the University of California. Graduate courses in quantum chemistry and applied math at Harvard had created a strong interest in a quantitative theoretical understanding of molecules and their quantum states. The new molecular-beam scattering work of Dudley Herschbach (1) was attractive to me. The most attractive was George Pimentel's proposal of a six-month experimental study of the infrared (IR) spectrum of methylene (CH2) in a matrix, solid N2 or Ar, that would be followed by molecular orbital calculations of methylene's structure and spectrum.
Methylene has humbled many spectroscopists and inspired quite a few theoreticians. My thesis work (2), 36 intense months in the lab, yielded interesting spectra of methylene precursors, diazomethane (CH2N2) (3–5), diazirine (c-CH2N2) (6, 7), and ketene (CH2CO) (8). My gunpowder experience provided some preparation for the explosive properties of these molecules. Naivety led me to suggest that the second most intense band that was assigned as a fundamental vibration in both ketene and diazomethane was actually the overtone of the out-of-plane CH2 bending vibration (4, 5, 8). The rotationally resolved spectrum of the three overlapping bends in the 400–500 cm1 region bore this out (3). The out-of-plane bending potential has a small quadratic force constant and a relatively large quartic anharmonic constant, a somewhat bucket-shaped potential. This was qualitatively rationalized (9) in terms of resonance structures, one planar and one with the CH2 bent out of the plane (with a formal negative charge on the carbon and positive on the adjacent nitrogen); this discussion turned out to be the extent of the molecular orbital theory part of my thesis. It would be another 20 years before Hrvoje Petek, David Nesbitt, and Peter Ogilby observed IR spectra of methylene in the gas phase using a high-resolution laser (10). My thesis (2) described the reactivity of methylene from diazomethane or its cyclic isomer, diazirine, in solids at 20 K with isotopically labeled N2 (6) and with diazomethane (7).
Pimentel was an exceptional scientific mentor in this thesis work; in many ways, he also replaced my father who had died during my first semester at Harvard. Pimentel's weekly group meeting was always a special learning experience. Everyone learned to be constantly questioning and skeptical of one's data and interpretations, and of the literature, always aware that Mother Nature is constantly setting traps to destroy the credibility of the unwary researcher. Discussions of new results in terms of alternative physical models let us see his exceptional intuitive insight and his strongly supportive mentoring style. During the third year of thesis work, I interviewed for faculty positions and at age 23 faced the intimidating challenge of establishing an internationally recognized research program at Berkeley entirely different from Pimentel's.
导师与学生
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-176-8277.html
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