Benjamin Widom (born 13 October 1927) is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. His research interests include

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistica ...

and statistical mechanics. In 1998, Widom was awarded the

Boltzmann Medal The Boltzmann Medal (or Boltzmann Award) is a prize awarded to physicists that obtain new results concerning statistical mechanics; it is named after the celebrated physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. The Boltzmann Medal is awarded once every three years ...

"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 tensions of fluids near critical points."

Academic background

Widom was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

's Stuyvesant High School in 1945, and received his BA from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1949, followed by his PhD from Cornell 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 The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1979.

Publications

* ''Theoretical modeling: An introduction''. Ber. Bunsenges. Phys. Chem. 1996, 100, 242. * ''Theory of phase equilibrium''. J. Phys. Chem. 1996, 100, 13190. * Lekkerkerker, H.N.W.; Widom, B. ''An Exactly Solvable Model for Depletion Phenomena''. Physica A 2000, 285, 483-492. * Barkema, G.T.; Widom, B. ''Model of Hydrophobic Attraction in Two and Three Dimensions''. J. Chem Phys. 2000, 113, 2349-2353. * Weiss, V.C.; Widom, B. ''Contact Angles in Sequential Wetting: Pentane On Water''. Physica A 2001, 292, 137-145. * Widom, B. ''Surface Tension and Molecular Correlations near the Critical Point'', J. Chem. Phys. 1965, 43, 3892-3897. * Widom, B. ''Equation of State in the Neighborhood of the Critical Point'', J. Chem. Phys. 1965, 43, 3898-3905. * Widom, B.; Bhimalapuram, P; Koga, K. ''The Hydrophobic Effect''. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (PCCP) 2003, 5, 3085-3093.

Family

Widom's niece, Jennifer Widom is the Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the Stanford School of Engineering and the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science.

Awards

* New York Academy of Sciences

Boris Pregel Boris Pregel (russian: Борис Юльевич Прегель; 24 January 1893 – 7 December 1976) was a Russian Empire-born Jewish engineer and dealer in uranium and radium. He was born in Odessa, in the Russian Empire, and studied engineering ...

Award in Chemical Physics * ACS Langmuir Medal in Chemical Physics, 1982 * ACS Hildebrand Award in Theoretical and Experimental Chemistry of Liquids *

Carnegie-Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

Dickson Prize for Science, 1987 *

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

Hirschfelder Prize * Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Bakhuys Roozeboom Medal * Onsager Lectureship, 1994 *

, 1998 * IUPAP Commission on Statistical Physics, 1998 * ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry, 1999 * National Academy of Sciences *

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

* American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow * New York Academy of Sciences Fellow

Private life

Widom is father to Michael Widom, a professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon University, Elizabeth Widom, a professor of geology at Miami University, and the late Jonathan Widom, a professor of biochemistry at Northwestern University. He is brother to

Harold Widom Harold Widom (September 23, 1932 – January 20, 2021) was an American mathematician best known for his contributions to operator theory and random matrices. He was appointed to the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Santa ...

, professor emeritus of mathematics at U. C. Santa Cruz.

References

Benjamin Widom
at Cornell University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

{{DEFAULTSORT:Widom, Benjamin 1927 births Living people People from Newark, New Jersey Stuyvesant High School alumni Columbia College (New York) alumni Cornell University alumni Theoretical chemists American physical chemists Cornell University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Scientists from New York (state) Fellows of the American Physical Society