Peter Atkins
From Free net encyclopedia
Peter William Atkins (born 1940) is a Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College in the University of Oxford. He is a prolific writer of successful chemistry textbooks, particularly Atkins' Physical Chemistry (ISBN 0198792859) and Inorganic Chemistry (ISBN 019850330X), two of the world's most popular chemistry textbooks. Atkins is also the author of a number of popular science works, including Atkins' Molecules and Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science. Atkins (who is an atheist) has also written and spoken on issues of humanism, atheism, and what he sees as the incompatibility between science and religion.
Peter Atkins studied chemistry at the University of Leicester, obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry and in 1964 a Ph.D. for research into electron spin resonance. In 1969, he won the Royal Society of Chemistry's Meldola Medal. Atkins then taught physical chemistry at UCLA and later at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he has been ever since.
Atkins married fellow scientist Susan Greenfield (later Baroness Greenfield) in 1990. The couple divorced in 2003.
Professor Atkins is known to lecture Quantum Courses at the University of Oxford.