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Autobiography of Mark A. Ratner For a scientist, autobiography can be a nettlesome thing. We are trained to imagine, envision, and create. We are taught to look for patterns, to measure and characterize, to construct hypotheses, and then either to support or to disprove them. Recent philosophy of science arguments suggests that verification really relies on a communal effort to formulate what is true and stresses that acceptance by the functioning community of scientists is in many cases what validates a theory. This follows from the Popper idea that the only good scientific ideas are falsifiable and cuts a bit against the romantic notion that any individual scientist can easily change the dominant current thought modes. So autobiography seems different from the kind of science that we were taught to do, and to write about, and to understand. But when JPC asked me to write one, and that request came from its editor, one of my closest collaborators and best friends (and a person whose scientific creativity, judgment, accomplishments, and standards I respect tremendously), I had to comply. The ideas here are discernible in some of my publications, but this is an opportunity to express them briefly, to note some things I still want to do, and to try to put it all into perspective. History and Research I was in junior high when Sputnik was launched, and that occasioned my becoming a scientist. I finished high school in Shaker Heights, Ohio, college at Harvard, and doctoral work at Northwestern (in 1969). Following postdoctoral work at Aarhus in Denmark (where I worked on the kind of very formal theory that attracts young scientists, and I absolutely loved everything about the place), and in Munich, I began my career in the Chemistry Department at New York University. My first student there, Ari Aviram, was the person who launched modern investigations into the area of molecular electronics. I returned to Northwestern in 1975. I have chaired the Chemistry Department at Northwestern, been Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and now I hold the Dumas University Professorship. I am also codirector of the Initiative for Energy and Sustainability at Northwestern (ISEN), and (again!) chair of the chemistry department. I am interested in structure and function at the nanoscale and the theory of fundamental chemical processes. I try to bring together structure and function in molecular nanostructures, based on theoretical notions, on exemplary calculations, and (very importantly) on collaborations with experimentalists and other theorists, in the United States and around the world. Some principal areas of interest are molecular electronics, theories of self-assembly, relaxation, and response in molecules and exact and approximate theories of quantum dynamics. My newest interest is in using nanoscience to attack the energy problems facing this world. In the interstices of these, I spend as much time trout fishing as possible. People So many people have taught me so much that simply to list them all would take the space that I’ve been allotted to complete this whole exercise. My earliest teachers of significance were in high school and included Dr. M. E. Dilley, a woman with a
Ph.D. from the University of Chicago who taught me high school Latin and told me at the very beginning that I was getting a D minus and had to shape up or .... My high school chemistry teacher and wrestling coach, Robert Goodman, taught me that chemistry was indeed the central science, and that nearly every activity in which people are engaged has chemistry at its root (he had interesting simple thermochemical ideas about how wrestlers ought to eat). In college I vacillated, and at one point or another I had declared six different majors. Chemistry finally won, because in first year chemistry Dick Holm and Bill Lipscomb got me interested in the stuff beyond the textbook. Leonard Nash was my undergraduate advisor and bailed me out when I went aphasic during an applied math exam, which I should have flunked (but did not, because of his intervention.) Finally, Bill Klemperer and Eugene Rochow both put up with having me in their research groups, and I learned about the challenges and delights of chemical synthesis from one, and the necessity of imagination and hard work from the other. My best teachers in high school, college, and the rest of my life have been friends and family. In high school, Jim Arsham kept me sane. In college, my roommates Don Stern and Charles Lyman kept reminding me that there was a world beyond chemistry, a world that provided rewards and delights, but that needs help at all levels and at all times. They continue to tell me this fifty years later, and I am still learning from them. I came to Northwestern because of the blandishments of inorganic chemistry, particularly the color of metal complexes that Fred Basolo was developing. I wanted to do mechanistic inorganic chemistry, and to work with a tight-knit community. If the word “inorganic” was removed from that last sentence, it would have described my career in graduate school and since. When I entered Northwestern, Evanston was dry and had no restaurants, the faculty had brown bag lunch together daily, and some of the best literature classes were taught in the chemistry lecture room, because that was the biggest and most convenient place. So I’d listen to Richard Ellman’s lectures on Joyce at two o’clock, then hang around for the chemistry colloquia at four. Northwestern is on a Great Lake, and water has been a recurrent force in my life, one that grounds me, lets me see different elements, and lets me dream in different ways. Graduate school was wonderful, because of great teachers from Fred Basolo to Irv Klotz to Arnold Seigert. Some of the lab conditions were pretty primitive, but as a theorist that did not seem to matter. My two advisers (Ludwig Hofacker and Sighart Fischer) were wonderfulsthey were supportive in every instance, they suggested ideas and methods, they left me alone when I needed to be left alone, and they both stressed the fact that the theoretical chemist needs to know at least a little bit of mathematics, and that some contemporary physics would not hurt either. They also pointed me in the directions that I have since pursued, involving charges and charge transfer, mechanism and behaviors, techniques and computations, and collaboration with experimentalists. Again in graduate school, my most important teachers were my colleagues, particularly Ken Raymond, Jim Meyer, Marv Carruthers, and Jack Sabin. Jack did everything for me, from teaching me about fur-bearing trout to introducing me to a wonderful woman who has put up with me for forty-one years
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of marriage. He also suggested that it might be nice to do postdoctoral work in Scandinavia. So I did. The time in Aarhus was elegiac, challenging, rewarding, and delicious. The teachers of that time were Josef Michl, Jens Oddershede, Pekka Pykko, Yngve Ohrn, Poul Jorgensen, and of course Jan Linderberg. All of these people became close friends, and Jan in particular taught me about formal science, about the importance of firm mathematical conclusions, about Green’s functions and how they work, and about how mixing science with life should be done. Denmark brought me the Esmann family, to whom I’ve been close for three generations, and it opened the eyes of an American to how other cultures worked, and what other cultures did, and how wonderful it was to know something in-depth about a different place. When the time came to finish in Aarhus, I spent a wonderful few months in Munich visiting Ludwig, and then I began my first real job at New York University. There my insecure soul was grounded by Benson Sundheim and by Jules Moskowitz, and other wonderful colleagues like Martin Pope, Nick Geacintov, and Paul Gans. The city was fantastic, I had some terrific graduate students and postdocs, and I would have stayed forever had not the Midwest and Northwestern beckoned me home. I left New York full of wise sayings from Benson and deep insights, beautifully put, from Jules and Judy. I returned to Northwestern in 1975 and have used Evanston as my home base for flying around the world since then. I have spent considerable time doing research in Denmark (with the group in Aarhus, and with Kurt Mikkelsen and his group in Copenhagen), and in Israel. Israel does some of the best theoretical chemistry in the world, and Raphy, Joshua, Ronnie, Benny, and Abe have been very close friends, and very wonderful teachers. Ronnie has creatively kept me aware of theoretical advances, new experimental challenges and the importance of walks, and Abe has been a wonderful teacher,
collaborator, counselor, and Northwestern colleagueshe also continually reminds me that if we do not understand the physical mechanism, the calculations are not really very valuable. My colleagues at Northwestern have been spectacular. I have written dozens of papers with them, starting with Lou Allred and Du Shriver. I have published with about half the members of the department. In particular, George Schatz, Mike Wasielewski, and Tobin Marks have taught me a great deal, while we co-supervised students and postdocs. Although we have done less work together, my other colleagues have also been highly instrumental in my work, from Joe Hupp to Rick van Duyne, to John Pople, to Tamar Seideman, to Chad Mirkin and everyone else. Finally, the people who have given me part of their lives by joining my research group have made it all worthwhile. From Ari at the beginning to the wonderful group that I currently have. They are listed on the next page. They represent 23 countries, and each of them has a special place in my heart. Every day I am reminded of the tremendous honor that they pay or have paid me in volunteering to work with me, of how much they have taught me, and of how wonderful they’ve made the ride. My current group of spectacular students and postdocs is what’s responsible for getting me up every morning, and letting me derive joy even in the midst of being a bureaucrat. Nancy, Stacy, Daniel, and Genevieve are the core of my being, my lights, and my loves. My family in Cleveland, particularly my brothers Jim, Ron, and Chuck, have put up with me for an extremely long time and somehow derive more amusement than pain from my erratic behavior. I am grateful to them for their patience and their love, and I am grateful to JPC for this volume. At 67, I can say with HDT that “There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”
Mark A. Ratner JP110900K
