Benjamin Widom

Benjamin Widom was co-winner of the Boltzmann Award in 1998 "for his illuminating studies of the statistical mechanics of fluids and fluid mixtures and their interfacial properties, especially his clear and general formulation of scaling hypotheses for the equation of state and surface tension of fluids near critical points."

Widom was born in Newark, New Jersey. He graduated from New York City's Stuyvesant High School in 1945, and received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1949, followed by his Ph.D from Cornell University in 1953. He became an instructor of chemistry at Cornell in 1954, was appointed assistant professor in 1955 and a full professor in 1963. He was chair of the chemistry department between 1978 and 1981. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1974 and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1979.

Publications list

Incomplete list:

1. B. Widom "Some Topics in the Theory of Fluids", Journal of Chemical Physics 39 pp. 2808-2812 (1963)
2. H. C. Longuet-Higgins and B. Widom "A rigid sphere model for the melting of argon", Molecular Physics 8 pp. 549-556 (1964)
3. B. Widom "On the Radial Distribution Function in Fluids", Journal of Chemical Physics 41 pp. 74-77 (1964)
4. B. Widom "Intermolecular Forces and the Nature of the Liquid State: Liquids reflect in their bulk properties the attractions and repulsions of their constituent molecules", Science 157 pp. 375-382 (1967)
5. Michael E. Fisher and B. Wiodm "Decay of Correlations in Linear Systems", Journal of Chemical Physics 50 3756 (1969)
6. B. Widom and J. S. Rowlinson, "New Model for the Study of Liquid–Vapor Phase Transitions", Journal of Chemical Physics 52, pp. 1670-1684 (1970)
7. B. Widom "Potential-distribution theory and the statistical mechanics of fluids", Journal of Physical Chemistry 86 pp. 869 - 872 (1982)
8. B. Widom "Theoretical modeling: An introduction", Berichte der Bunsen-Gesellschaft 100 pp. 242- (1996)
9. B. Widom "Theory of Phase Equilibrium", Journal of Physical Chemistry 100 pp. 13190–13199 (1996)
10. Anatoly B. Kolomeisky and B. Widom "A Simplified “Ratchet” Model of Molecular Motors", Journal of Statistical Physics 93 pp. 633-645 (1998)
11. B. Widom "Structure and tension of interfaces", Molecular Physics 96 pp. 1019-1026 (1999)
12. B. Widom "What do we know that van der Waals did not know?", Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 263 pp. 500-515 (1999)
13. H. N. W. Lekkerkerker and B. Widom "An exactly solvable model for depletion phenomena", Physica A 285 pp. 483-492 (2000)
14. G. T. Barkema and B. Widom "Model of hydrophobic attraction in two and three dimensions", Journal of Chemical Physics 113 pp. 2349-2353 (2000)
15. Volker C. Weiss and B. Widom "Contact angles in sequential wetting: pentane on water", Physica A 292 pp. 137-145 (2001)
16. B. Widom, P. Bhimalapuram and Kenichiro Koga "The hydrophobic effect", PCCP 5 pp. 3085-3093 (2003)
17. Y. Djikaev and B. Widom "Geometric view of the thermodynamics of adsorption at a line of three-phase contact", Journal of Chemical Physics 121 5602 (2004)

Books

• J. S. Rowlinson and B. Widom "Molecular Theory of Capillarity". Dover 2002 (originally: Oxford University Press 1982) ISBN 0486425444
• B. Widom "Statistical Mechanics: A Concise Introduction for Chemists", Cambridge University Press (2002) ISBN 0521009669

See also

• Fisher-Widom line
• Widom test-particle method
• Widom-Rowlinson model

External links

• Homepage of Benjamin Widom