Word: herschbachs
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...call came to Boston Dentist James Hirshberg at 8:30 last Wednesday morning. It was from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, saying he had won the Nobel Prize. But no, they had the wrong number. Then a radio station telephoned to congratulate Georgene Herschbach, a Harvard assistant dean. This was a mistake too, but at least the station was warm: she ran across the campus to her husband's office. So it was that Dudley R. Herschbach, 54, learned he would share this year's chemistry prize with his onetime collaborator, Yuan T. Lee, 49, of the University...
...late 1950s Herschbach proposed to study what happens to individual molecules in the trillionth of a second of a chemical reaction by using the crossed molecular beam technique. Colleagues thought he was crazy, but this novel approach proved to be useful -- especially in the following years, when Lee made improvements that substantially increased the variety of reactions that could be studied this way. The method is analogous to that of particle physicists, who accelerate beams of speeding subatomic particles, smash them together or into a target, and then study the resulting debris. Herschbach's and Lee's beams consist...
...Herschbach's whole approach to teaching science--whether in press conferences or in classrooms--debunks the myth that the sciences and the humanities are "two cultures," radically opposed. More important than the poetry contests Herschbach holds in his freshman chemistry course is his role in the long-term development and "humanizing" of Harvard's science curriculum. In chairing the Curriculum Committee in Chemistry, he collaborated with Medical School administrators to establish the "life science"-oriented organic chemistry courses, Chem 17 and 27, as an alternative route through the "orgo" bottleneck...
...Listing Herschbach's accomplishments hardly does justice to his contributions to the undergraduate community, but notable in his five-year term as Currier House co-master are his support for the Dance Marathon, the music program, as well as ethnic awareness--for which he and his wife, Georgene, were given an honorary award by the Black Students Association...
Having won the Nobel Prize, Herschbach didn't sit back on his laurels last week. He immediately decided to use his $95,000 to set up a fund for young artists and musicians. Even at Harvard not many professors win the Nobel Prize--Herschbach is the 30th to do so--but like the students in his classrooms, the College community can learn from his example...