Bernard Pullman (19 March 1919,

Włocławek Włocławek (Polish pronunciation: ; german: Leslau) is a city located in central Poland along the Vistula (Wisła) River and is bordered by the Gostynin-Włocławek Landscape Park. As of December 2021, the population of the city is 106,928. Loc ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

– 9 June 1996) was a French

theoretical A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...

quantum chemist and quantum biochemist. Pullman studied at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

, then spent the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

as a French Army officer in Africa and the Middle East. Returning to Paris in 1946, he completed the Licence-es-Sciences in 1946 and the Docteur-es-Science in 1948. From 1946 to 1954, he worked at the

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science Basic research, also called pure research o ...

(CNRS). In 1954 he was appointed Professor at the Sorbonne. In 1959, he became Director of the Department of Quantum Biochemistry at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique. In 1963, he was promoted to Director of the Institute. He was a founding member of the

International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science The International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (IAQMS) is an international scientific learned society covering all applications of quantum theory to chemistry and chemical physics. It was created in Menton in 1967. The founding members we ...

. Over the course of his career, Pullman published about 400 scientific papers and 5 books, three with his wife

Alberte Pullman Alberte Pullman (née Bucher) (26 August 1920 – 7 January 2011) was a French theoretical chemistry, theoretical and Quantum chemistry, quantum chemist. She studied at the University of Paris, Sorbonne starting in 1938. During her studies she wor ...

, his lifelong collaborator. In joint work published in the 1950s and 1960s, they founded the new field of quantum biochemistry. They also pioneered the application of quantum chemistry to predicting the

carcinogenic A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...

properties of

aromatic hydrocarbons Aromatic compounds, also known as "mono- and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons", are organic compounds containing one or more aromatic rings. The parent member of aromatic compounds is benzene. The word "aromatic" originates from the past grouping ...

. After his 1989 retirement, he wrote ''The Atom in the History of Human Thought'' (Paris: Fayard, 1995), a work approachable by general readers.

References

*''International Journal of Quantum Chemistry'' 75(3), 1999, Special Issue: In Memory of Bernard Pullman.

Books by Pullman

* 1963 (with

). ''Quantum Biochemistry''. New York: John Wiley Interscience. ; . * 1965 (with M. Weissbluth). ''Molecular Biophysics.'' New York: Academic Press, New York. * 1998. ''The Atom in the History of Human Thought'', trans. by Axel Reisinger. Oxford Univ. Press.

External links

His International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science page
1919 births Polish emigrants to France 20th-century French chemists Members of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science Theoretical chemists University of Paris alumni Members of the French Academy of Sciences 1996 deaths {{chemist-stub