| RefNo | EC/1987/31 |
| Previous numbers | Cert XXII, 78 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Rabinovitch, Benton Seymour: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1983 |
| Description | Citation typed |
| Citation | Distinguished for his systematic elucidation of the molecular mechanism of unimolecular reactions, through a series of ingenious experiments performed over a period of three decades and detailed in some 200 publications. Professor Rabinovitch and his students pioneered the preparation of nearly mono-energetic reactants, by chemical activation. This technique permitted critical tests to be made of unimolecular rate theory, thereby establishing experimentally such fundamental parameters as the time required for vibrational energy deposited in a specified form of motion to become distributed over all degrees of freedom of the molecule. At the same time Rabinovitch's experiments have opened the way to extensive measurements of collisional deactivation efficiency, and of the amount of energy removed in a single collision. Recently these methods of studying gaseous collisions have been extended by Rabinovitch's laboratory to include gas-surface encounters. In sum the work of Rabinovitch's school has reshaped our understanding of unimolecular reaction rates, intermolecular energy-transfer, and intramolecular energy relaxation in a notable fashion. |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA4678 | Rabinovitch; Benton Seymour (1919 - 2014) | 1919 - 2014 |