Włodzimierz Kołos was one of the founders of modern quantum chemistry

Quantum chemistry

Quantum chemistry is a branch of chemistry whose primary focus is the application of quantum mechanics in physical models and experiments of chemical systems...

, and pioneered accurate calculations on the electronic structure of molecules. Kołos was born on September 6, 1928 in Pinsk

Pinsk

Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...

. He received his M.Sc. in chemistry in 1950 and began his academic career as an organic chemist. However, he was soon attracted to theoretical physics. He began his graduate studies in theoretical physics in 1951 and completed his thesis in only two years. The University of Warsaw

University of Warsaw

The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...

 and the Polish Chemical Society award the Kołos Medal every two years to commemorate his life and career.

Kołos is best known for his work on the theory of electron correlation in molecules. In 1958 he went the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, at a time when powerful computers were first becoming available for scientific work. He developed a new computer program to solve the Schrödinger equation

Schrödinger equation

The Schrödinger equation was formulated in 1926 by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Used in physics , it is an equation that describes how the quantum state of a physical system changes in time....

 for the hydrogen molecule to unprecedented accuracy. In the early 1960s, Kołos and Wolniewicz published a number of pioneering papers on the potential energy curves of the hydrogen molecule, including several corrections to the Born–Oppenheimer approximation, including adiabatic, non-adiabatic, and relativistic terms. One result attracted particular attention: the calculated dissociation energy disagreed with the best experimental data then available, from Gerhard Herzberg

Gerhard Herzberg

Gerhard Heinrich Friedrich Otto Julius Herzberg, was a pioneering physicist and physical chemist, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1971, "for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals". Herzberg's main work concerned...

’s group. A few years later Herzberg improved his experiment and obtained a new result that agreed with the theoretical prediction. This was the first time that quantum mechanical calculations on a molecule had proved more accurate than the best experiments. Herzberg himself emphasized the importance of this in his Nobel Prize lecture.

Kołos established a strong research group in molecular quantum chemistry in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, and made many other important contributions, particularly in the field of intermolecular forces. He made important contributions to the development of the symmetry-adapted perturbation theory of intermolecular forces and carried out pioneering studies on the nonadditivity of intermolecular forces. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Polish Academy of Sciences

The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an academy of sciences.-History:...

, the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science

International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science

The International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science 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 were Raymond Daudel, Per-Olov Löwdin, Robert G. Parr, John...

 and the Academia Europea.

Awards and recognition

• the Sniadecki Medal
• the Copernicus Medal
• the Medal of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
  Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
  The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was set up in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between scholars from the sciences and humanities in Israel, to advise the government on research projects of national importance, and to promote excellence. It comprises...
  
  
• the Alexander von Humboldt
  Alexander von Humboldt
  Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
  
   Award
• the Jurzykowski Award
• the Swietoslawski Award
• the first Annual Medal of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science
  International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science
  The International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science 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 were Raymond Daudel, Per-Olov Löwdin, Robert G. Parr, John...