Richard Barry Bernstein

Richard Barry Bernstein ( born October 31, 1923 in Long Iceland, New York, † July 8, 1990 in Helsinki, Finland) was an American chemist who worked on chemical kinetics and is considered one of the founders of Femtochemistry.

In 1955 he developed molecular beam methods ( molecular beam scattering) to study chemical reactions. The availability of ultrashort laser pulses allowed the resolution of the reactions to the femtosecond range. He most recently worked together with Ahmed Zewail. With his PhD Robert J. LeRoy in 1970, he developed a theory to calculate the vibrational states of molecules close to the dissociation threshold semiclassically.

Bernstein made ​​his 1943 bachelor's degree at Columbia University and then worked in the Manhattan Project at the isotopic enrichment. In 1948 he received his doctorate at Columbia University in chemistry. He became a professor and was on the board of the chemistry faculty. After professorships at the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, the University of Wisconsin -Madison and the Illinois Institute of Technology 1983, he was professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He died in Helsinki, where he was for treatment of a heart attack at a conference in Moscow.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1968), was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1989 he received the National Medal of Science. In 1988 he received the Welch Award in Chemistry, 1985 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences and Willard Gibbs Medal in 1989.