:Peter Atkins

{{for multi|the bishop|Peter Atkins (bishop)|the professor of geography|Peter Atkins (geographer)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| image = Peter William Atkins (the chemist) cropped.jpg

| name = Peter William Atkins

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1940|08|10}}

| birth_place = Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England

| death_date =

| death_place =

| field = Physical chemistry

| work_institutions = {{unbulleted list|University of California, Los Angeles|Lincoln College, Oxford}}

| alma_mater = University of Leicester

| doctoral_advisor = MCR Symons

| doctoral_students = {{unbulleted list|Laurence Barron|David Broomhead}}

| spouse = {{Plainlist|

{{Marriage|Judith Kearton|1964|1983|reason=divorced}}
{{Marriage|Susan Greenfield|1991|2005|reason=divorced}}
{{Marriage|Patricia-Jean Nobes|2008}}

}}

| known_for = Academic-level chemistry textbooks

| prizes = RSC Meldola Medal

| footnotes =

}}

Peter William Atkins {{postnominals|country=GBR|FRSC}} (born 10 August 1940) is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Atkins is also the author of a number of popular science books, including Atkins' Molecules, Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science and On Being.

Career

Atkins left school (Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham) at fifteen and took a job at Monsanto as a laboratory assistant. He studied for A-levels by himself and gained a place, following a last-minute interview, at the University of Leicester.

Atkins studied chemistry there, obtaining a BSc degree in chemistry, and a PhD degree in 1964 for research into electron spin resonance spectroscopy, and other aspects of theoretical chemistry. Atkins then took a postdoctoral position at UCLA as a Harkness Fellow of the Commonwealth fund.{{cite web|url=http://www.knaw.nl/vanthoff/sprekers.htm |access-date=17 August 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081005151248/http://www.knaw.nl/vanthoff/sprekers.htm |title=Van 't Hoff Centennial Symposium |archive-date=5 October 2008 }} He returned to Britain in 1965 as a fellow and tutor of Lincoln College, Oxford, and lecturer in physical chemistry (later, professor of physical chemistry). In 1969, he won the Royal Society of Chemistry's Meldola Medal. In 1996 he was awarded the Title of Distinction of Professor of Chemistry. He retired in 2007, and since then has been a full-time author.{{cite web |url=http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0/peter-atkins |title=Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2 – Peter Atkins |access-date=20 January 2011 |publisher=The Science Network}}

He has honorary doctorates from the University of Utrecht, the University of Leicester (where he sits on the university Court), Mendeleev University in Moscow, and Kazan State Technological University.

He was a member of the Council of the Royal Institution and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was the founding chairman of IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education, and is a trustee of a variety of charities.

Atkins has lectured in quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, and thermodynamics courses (up to graduate level) at the University of Oxford. He is a patron of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

In 2016 Atkins received the James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public from the American Chemical Society.{{Cite web | url=https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2016/july/english-chemist-peter-atkins-wins-grady-stack-award-for-science-journalism.html | title=English chemist Peter Atkins wins Grady-Stack award for science journalism}}

Views on religion

Atkins is a well-known atheist.{{cite web |url=http://www.atheistdebate.org/ |title=Video of March 2007 debate with Alister McGrath |publisher=Atheistdebate.org |date=11 February 2009 |access-date=2011-08-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110904151119/http://www.atheistdebate.org/ |archive-date=4 September 2011 |url-status=usurped }} He has written and spoken on issues of humanism, atheism, and conflicts between science and religion. According to Atkins, whereas religion scorns the power of human comprehension, science respects it.{{cite web |url=http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=atkins_18_2 |title=Who Really Works Hardest to Banish Ignorance? |access-date=22 March 2008 |author=Atkins, Peter |publisher=Council for Secular Humanism }}

He was the first Senior Member of the Oxford University Secular Society, a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK (formerly known as the British Humanist Association) and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.{{cite web|title=National Secular Society Honorary Associates|url=https://secularism.org.uk/honorary-associates.html|website=National Secular Society|access-date=31 July 2019}} 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, including John Lennox,{{YouTube|fSYwCaFkYno|Lennox vs Atkins - Can science explain everything?}} Alister McGrath, Stephen C. Meyer, Hugh Ross,{{YouTube|hVCVt-dvVOc|Hugh Ross vs Peter Atkins • Debating the origins of the laws of nature}} William Lane Craig,{{YouTube|Y9c2626M5ek|First Debate With William Lane Craig}}{{YouTube|Ssq-S5M8wsY|Second Debate With William Lane Craig}} Rabbi Shmuley Boteach,{{Cite web|url=http://shmuley.com/articles.php?id=627|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080426190731/http://shmuley.com/articles.php?id=627|url-status=dead|title=Rabbi Shmuley Boteach|archivedate=26 April 2008}} and Richard Swinburne.

In December 2006, Atkins was interviewed by journalist Rod Liddle in a UK television documentary on atheism called The Trouble with Atheism. In the documentary, Liddle asked Atkins: "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."{{cite episode

| title = The Trouble with Atheism

| episode-link = The_Trouble_with_Atheism

| series = UK Channel 4 TV Documentary

| airdate = 18 December 2006

}} In July 2016, Atkins was quoted as stating, “We are a hiccup on the way from one oblivion to another oblivion.”{{cite news |last=Smart |first=Simon |title=The Meaningful Universe |url=https://www.publicchristianity.org/the-meaningful-universe/ |date=15 July 2016 |work=Centre for Public Christianity |accessdate=14 November 2021 }}

Atkins is known for his use of strident language in criticising religion: He appeared in the 2008 documentary-style film 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".[http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Apr08/Art_Apr08_03.html 'Expelled' documentary explores Darwin, Intelligent Design, religion debate] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081013123922/http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Apr08/Art_Apr08_03.html |date=13 October 2008 }}. Christianexaminer.com. Retrieved on 27 August 2011.

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".{{cite news| url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2223841,00.html | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=The art of the soluble | date=8 December 2007 | access-date=22 May 2010 | first=Colin | last=Tudge |author-link=Colin Tudge}}

Personal life

Atkins married Judith Kearton in 1964 and they had one daughter, Juliet (born 1970). They divorced in 1983. In 1991, he married fellow scientist Susan Greenfield (later Baroness Greenfield). They divorced in 2005. In 2008, he married Patricia-Jean Nobes (née Brand).

Publications

=General readers=

{{cite book |title=The Creation |year=1981 |publisher=W. H. Freeman & Co Ltd |isbn=0-7167-1350-0 }}
The Second Law. Scientific American Library, an imprint of W. H. Freeman and Company. 1984. {{ISBN|0-7167-5004-X}}
{{cite book |title=Creation Revisited |year=1993 |publisher=W. H. Freeman & Co Ltd |isbn=0-7167-4500-3 }}
{{cite book |title=Second Law: Energy, Chaos, and Form |year=1994 |publisher=W. H. Freeman & Co Ltd |isbn=0-7167-5005-8}}
{{cite book |title=The Periodic Kingdom: A journey into the land of the chemical elements |year=1995 |publisher=BasicBooks |isbn=0-465-07266-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/periodickingdom00atki }}
{{cite book |title=Atkins' Molecules |year=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-53536-0 }}
{{cite book |title=Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science |url=https://archive.org/details/galileosfingerte00atki |url-access=registration |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-860941-8 }}
{{cite book |title=Four Laws That Drive the Universe |year=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-923236-9 }}
{{cite book|title=The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction|year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-957219-9}}
{{cite book |title=On Being: A Scientist's Exploration of the Great Questions of Existence |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-960336-7 }}
{{cite book |title=Reactions: The private life of atoms |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-969512-6 }}
{{cite book|title=What is Chemistry?|isbn=978-0-19-968398-7|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press}}The Italian translation, Che cosa è la chimica? Un viaggio nel cuore della materia, won the Asimov Prize for 2016.
{{cite book|title=Physical Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction|year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-968909-5}}
{{cite book|title=Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-968397-0}}
{{cite book|title=Conjuring the Universe: The Origins of the Laws of Nature|year=2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|bibcode=2018cuol.book.....A }}{{cite journal |last1=Frazier |first1=Kendrick |author-link=Kendrick Frazier|title=New and Notable |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |date=2018 |volume=42 |issue=4 |page=60 |publisher=Committee for Skeptical Inquiry}}

=University textbooks=

{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=The Structure of Inorganic Radicals |author2=Symons, M. C. R. |year=1967 |location=Amsterdam, New York |publisher=Elsevier Pub. Co |oclc=543225}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Quanta: A Handbook of Concepts |url=https://archive.org/details/quantahandbookof00atki |url-access=registration |year=1991 |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |edition=2nd |isbn=978-0-19-855573-5}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=General Chemistry |author2=Beran, J. A. |url=https://archive.org/details/generalchemistry0000atki_u5c6 |url-access=registration |year=1992 |location=New York |publisher=Scientific American Books |edition=2nd |isbn=978-0716724964}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Quanta, Matter, and Change: A molecular approach to physical chemistry |author2=de Paula, Julio |author3=Friedman, Ronald |year=2009 |publisher=W. H. Freeman |location= New York|isbn=978-0-7167-6117-4 }}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Inorganic Chemistry |author2=Shriver, D. F. |edition=5th |year=2010 |publisher=W. H. Freeman |isbn=978-1-4292-1820-7 }}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Molecular Quantum Mechanics |author2=Friedman, Ronald |edition=5th |year=2010 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199541423}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Elements of Physical Chemistry |author2=de Paula, Julio |edition=7th |year=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198727873}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Physical Chemistry |author2=de Paula, Julio |edition=12th |year=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198847816}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Physical Chemistry for the Life Sciences |author2=de Paula, Julio |edition=3rd |year=2023 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198830108}}
{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Peter W. |title=Chemical Principles: The Quest for Insight |author2=Jones, Loretta |edition=8th |year=2023 |publisher=Macmillan Publishers |location=New York |isbn=978-1319437930}}
{{cite book |doi=10.1039/9781837674244 |doi-access=free |title=Concepts in Physical Chemistry |edition=2nd |date=2024 |last1=Atkins |first1=Peter W. |isbn=978-1-83767-386-5 |pages=394 }}