© Copyright 1998 American Chemical Society
MARCH 17, 1998 VOLUME 14, NUMBER 6
Dedication Brian E. Bent This special issue of Langmuir is dedicated to Brian Bent to honor his accomplishments and his memory. He was one of the brightest young leaders of modern surface chemistry, a Professor in the Chemistry Department of Columbia University. He passed away unexpectedly at the age of 35. A Brian Bent Symposium was held at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco in April of 1997. The four-day meeting was attended by Brian’s wife, Professor Stacey Bent, and his father, Professor Henry Bent, an accomplished chemist and a leader in chemical education until his retirement. Brian was the third generation of chemists from the Bent Family. The lectures at the Symposium were given by Brian Bent’s students, his friends and colleagues from Berkeley, where he was a graduate student, his colleagues at Bell Laboratories, where he was a postdoctoral researcher, and his colleagues at Columbia University. In addition, talks were given by those from other institutions who have known, loved, and respected him. In fact, over 20 scientists who have known Brian Bent and wanted to present lectures to honor his memory had to be turned away for lack of space in the meeting program. He was universally admired and respected in the chemistry community, and the outpouring of concern and interest in participating in the meeting reflected this. Brian Bent was my graduate student in Berkeley, receiving his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1986. He was one of the best and brightest of young surface scientists, a rising star in the profession. He was exceedingly talented, and everything came easily to him in the laboratory. Research accomplishments seemingly flowed out of his hands, effortlessly. He had a marvelous personality, incredible charm, and a caring for others. I never encountered anybody who did not say something nice and positive about meeting him. Brian Bent’s love was two-dimensional organic chemistry. His Ph.D. thesis had already shown signs of great things to come. He investigated the structure and bonding of organic monolayers by high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy, low-energy electron diffraction, thermal desorption, and many other techniques of modern surface science. He developed correlations between adsorbate structure and bonding. He determined the nature of the surface chemical bond of organic monolayers by isotope exchange by measuring turnover rates and thermal fragmentation. Brian Bent, an outstanding surface chemist and extraordinarily warm and caring human being, will be missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him. This issue of Langmuir pays tribute to his scientific accomplishment as a marvelous experimentalist and conceptual thinker and a true leader of surface chemistry.
G. A. Somorjai Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley LA970740U S0743-7463(97)00740-3 CCC: $15.00 © 1998 American Chemical Society Published on Web 03/17/1998
