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Josef Paldus

Paldus

Born November 25, 1935 in Bzí, Czech Republic.

Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Canada. Also an Adjunct Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

Email:paldus@uwaterloo.ca
WWW: external link

Corresponding Member, European Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Paris (1981). Fellow, The Royal Society of Canada (1983). Member, IAQMS (1984). Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin (1986-87). Killam Research Fellow (1987-89). Member, Board of Directors, International Society for Theoretical Chemical Physics (1990). J. Heyrovský Gold Medal, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1992). Gold Medal, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia (1994). Hans Vielberth Lecturer, University of Regensburg (1994). Honorary Member, The Learned Society, Czech Republic (1995). Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (1996). Fellow, Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (2002). Coulson Lecturer, University of Georgia, Athens, GA (2004). Gold Medal, Charles University, Prague (2005). Doctor Honoris Causa, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia (2006). Honorary Medal "De Scientia et Humanitate Optime Meritis", Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (2007). "Docteur Honoris Causa", Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France (2008). PATRIA Prize, Czech Republic (2008). Honorary Citizen of the city of Semily, Czech Republic (2009). Honorary Fellowship, European Society of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (2010).

Special issues: Journal of Molecular Structure (THEOCHEM), Vol. 547 (2001), pp. i-xi; 1-325; Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications, Vol. 70, Nos. 5-8, May-August (2005).

Symposia: "50 Years of Coupled Cluster Theory", Institute for Nuclear Theory (INT), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, U.S.A (2008); "Methods in Quantum Chemistry", ICCMSE 2010, Psalidi, Kos, Greece (2010).

Author of:

Over 330 scientific papers including over 40 book chapters.

Important Contributions:

Early work in theoretical polarography (with J. Koutecký) on polarographic kinetic currents and experimental work in high-resolution optical spectroscopy (with D. A. Ramsay) leading to the first analysis of the rotational fine structure of the electronic spectra of a truly polyatomic molecule and a determination of the first singlet excited state geometry of glyoxal.

His principal work concerns quantum chemical methodology and its applications (several with J. Čížek):

  • Formulation of stability conditions for Hartree-Fock solutions and introduction of concepts of the singlet, doublet, triplet, etc. stability.
  • First ab initio exploitation of coupled-cluster theory including an approximate account of triples.
  • Exploitation of the field-theoretic and diagrammatic methods in quantum chemistry, particularly in many-electron correlation problem.
  • Formulation of algebraic techniques involving both compact and non-compact Lie groups or algebras, in particular the unitary group and Clifford algebra approaches, and their exploitation in large-scale configuration interaction calculations, as well as in coupled-cluster and valence-bond approaches.
  • Property calculations via Green function, MBPT, and coupled-cluster linear response techniques.
  • Formulation of externally-corrected coupled-cluster approaches (with X. Li).
  • Development of both valence-universal and state-specific multi-reference coupled-cluster approaches, in particular the exact formulation of valence universality (with B. Jeziorski) and the formulation of general-model-space coupled-cluster approaches (with X. Li).
  • Multi-electron quantum dots and the concept of a conjugate Fermi-hole (with T. Sako and G.H.F. Diercksen).