The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is awarding American-Israeli scientists Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt, together with Austrian-American scientist Martin Karplus, Nobel Prize in chemistry for laying the foundation for computer models used to understand and predict chemical processes.
The Swedish academy noted that their research in the 1970s has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.
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The Swedish academy noted that their research in the 1970s has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.
"The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton's classical physics work side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics," the academy said. "Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or."
Warshel, 72, is a US and Israeli citizen affiliated with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Levitt is an American-Israeli professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine who has also held positions at the Weizmann Institute for many years. His wife still lives in Rehovot. Karplus, a US and Austrian citizen is affiliated with the University of Strasbourg, France, and Harvard University.
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