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Peter Atkins

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Peter William Atkins
Born (1940-08-10) August 10, 1940 (age 84)
Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
NationalityBritish
CitizenshipBritish
Alma materUniversity of Leicester
Known forAcademic level chemistry text books
AwardsRSC Meldola Medal
Scientific career
FieldsPhysical chemistry
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Lincoln College, Oxford
Doctoral advisorMCR Symons
Doctoral studentsLaurence Barron
A.D. Wilson-Gordon

Peter William Atkins (born August 10, 1940) is an English chemist and a fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College of the University of Oxford. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, 8th ed. (with Julio de Paula of Haverford College), Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics, 4th ed. Atkins is also the author of a number of science books for the general public, including Atkins' Molecules and Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science.

Career

Peter Atkins left school at fifteen 'for private reasons' and took a job with Monsanto as a lab assistant. He studied for A-levels by himself but failed to take a place at Southampton University before gaining a place, following an interview, at University of Leicester at a week's notice.

Atkins studied chemistry at the University of Leicester, obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and - in 1964 - a Ph.D. for research into electron spin resonance spectroscopy, and other aspects of theoretical chemistry. In 1969, he won the Royal Society of Chemistry's Meldola Medal. Atkins then taught physical chemistry at the UCLA as a Harkness Fellow, and later at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he was a researcher and lecturer until his retirement in 2007.

Atkins married Judith Ann Kearton in 1964 and together they had one daughter, Juliet Louise Tiffany (born 1970). The couple divorced in 1983. He later married fellow scientist Susan Greenfield (later Baroness Greenfield) in 1991. The couple divorced in 2005.

Atkins has lectured in quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry courses (up to graduate level) at the University of Oxford. He retired from lecturing at an Undergraduate level in December 2006. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

Religion

Atkins is a well-known atheist and supporter of many of Richard Dawkins' ideas. He has written and spoken on issues of humanism, atheism, and what he sees as the incompatibility between science and religion. According to Atkins, whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science respects it.

He was the first Senior Member for the Oxford Secular Society and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of The Reason Project, a US-based charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The organisation is led by fellow atheist and author Sam Harris. Atkins has regularly participated in debates with theists such as Alister McGrath, William Lane Craig, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and Richard Swinburne.

In December 2006, Atkins was featured in a UK television documentary on atheism called The Trouble with Atheism, presented by Rod Liddle. In that documentary Liddle asked Atkins to "Give me your views on the existence, or otherwise, of god." Atkins replied, "Well it's fairly straightforward: there isn't one. And there's no evidence for one, no reason to believe that there is one, and so I don't believe that there is one. And I think that it is rather foolish that people do think that there is one."

Atkins is known for his use of sharp language in criticising religion: he appeared in the controversial 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, in which he told interviewer Ben Stein that religion was "a fantasy", and "completely empty of any explanatory content. It is also evil." He appeared on a television panel about science and religion with Dawkins and Swinburne.

In 2007, Atkins's position on religion was described by Colin Tudge in an article in The Guardian as being non-scientific. In the same article, Atkins was also described as being 'more hardline than Richard Dawkins', and of deliberately choosing to ignore Peter Medawar's famous adage that "Science is the art of the soluble".

Books by Atkins

General readers

University textbooks

See also

Footnotes

  1. "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2 - Peter Atkins". The Science Network. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
  2. Video of March 2007 debate with Alister McGrath
  3. Atkins, Peter. "Who Really Works Hardest to Banish Ignorance?". Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved 2008-03-22.
  4. Transcript of debate with theist William Lane Craig
  5. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
  6. "The Trouble with Atheism, UK Channel 4 TV Documentary". 2006-12-18. {{cite episode}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |serieslink= (help); Missing or empty |series= (help); Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help)
  7. ‘Expelled’ documentary explores Darwin, Intelligent Design, religion debate
  8. Richard Dawkins, ""The God Delusion"", p. 64
  9. Review: God's Undertaker by John Lennox | Books | The Guardian

Sources

  • Who's Who in the World, 21st edition.
  • Debrett's People of Today. Debrett's Peerage Ltd., 2006.
  • Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006.

External links

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