Bretislav Friedrich
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Bretislav Friedrich (born 29 May 1953) is a ''Research Group leader'' at the Department of Molecular Physics, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and Honorarprofessor at the Technische Universität in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. He is globally recognized for his pioneering research surrounding interaction of molecules with and in electric, magnetic, and optical fields as well as on cold molecules. He was admitted to the
Learned Society of the Czech Republic Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learn ...
in 2011.


Biography

Bretislav Friedrich was born in Prague, Czech Republic on 29 May 1953. He graduated, in 1976, in physical chemistry from
Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...
in Prague, with a diploma thesis on deviations of dilute macro-molecular solutions in mixed solvents from the ideal behavior. Subsequently, he changed fields to study ion-molecule reactions in the gas phase and earned his Ph.D. degree from the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences in 1981 for his work on ion scattering in crossed beams.


Academic career

In 1981-82, he was a postdoc with Jean Futrell at the
University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
, in Salt Lake City, where he studied vibrational Feshbach resonances in low-energy charge-transfer scattering and other elementary collision process. He then returned to the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry as a research scientist. In 1986-87, he was an
Alexander von Humboldt Fellow The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Resear ...
in the department of Peter Toennies at the Max-Planck-Institut für Strömungsforschung in
Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
, where he studied inelastic proton scattering by atoms and molecules. In 1987, Bretislav Friedrich joined
Dudley Herschbach Dudley Robert Herschbach (born June 18, 1932) is an American chemist at Harvard University. He won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elemen ...
's group at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, at first as a research associate. During the following sixteen years at Harvard, he developed techniques to orient and align gas-phase molecules by exploiting the interactions between their permanent and induced dipole moments and external electric, magnetic, and optical fields. Together with the group of John Doyle at Harvard Physics, he also pioneered the study of cold molecules, by helping to develop the buffer-gas cooling technique and its combination with magnetic trapping. In 1997, he was appointed Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer in Chemistry at Harvard University. In 2003, he became a Research Group Leader at the
Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI) is a science research institute located at the heart of the academic district of Dahlem, in Berlin, Germany. The original Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochem ...
in Berlin, Germany, where he has been based ever since. His current research is chiefly theoretical (with a predilection for an analytic approach), but closely related to ongoing experiments. It revolves around interactions of molecules with and in fields and branches out into areas such as super-symmetric quantum mechanics,
quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...
, and spectroscopy of molecules in helium nano-droplets.


Personal life

Bretislav Friedrich and his wife, Christine Friedrich, nee Storch, have three children, Juliane (b. 2007), Christian (b. 2008) and Jitka (b. 2010). His daughter Jana (b. 1982), from his marriage with Helena Friedrich (1955–2002), is a graphic-design artist, living in Prague.


History of Science

Alongside his scientific research, Bretislav Friedrich has maintained an abiding interest in the
History of Science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
and has written on the emergence of quantum mechanics and of physical and theoretical chemistry as well as penned numerous biographical articles.


Disarmament

In 2015, Bretislav Friedrich co-organized an international symposium to mark the centenary of the infamous chlorine cloud attack at Ypres in 1915. The symposium examined key aspects of
chemical warfare Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare, biological warfare and radiological warfare, which together make up CBRN, the military acronym ...
from the first research on and deployment of chemical weapons in World War I to the development and use of chemical warfare during the century hence. The focus was on scientific, ethical, legal, and political issues of chemical weapons research and deployment — including the issue of
dual use In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.
— as well as the ongoing effort to control the possession of chemical weapons and to ultimately achieve their elimination. A proceedings volume consisting of papers presented at the symposium and supplemented by additional articles covers key aspects of chemical warfare from 1915 until this day.


Literature on Bretislav Friedrich

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References


External links


Bretislav Friedrich's HomepageBretislav Friedrich - Google Scholar Citations
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedrich, Bretislav Czech physicists Charles University alumni 1953 births Living people