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Peter William Atkins (born 1940) is a Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College in the University of Oxford. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, particularly Physical Chemistry (ISBN 0198792859), Inorganic Chemistry (ISBN 019850330X),and Molecular Quantum Mechanics, three of the world's most popular chemistry textbooks. Atkins' Physical Chemistry is now in its 8th edition; Atkins' Molecular Quantum Mechanics is in its 4th. Atkins is also the author of a number of popular science works, including Atkins' Molecules and Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science.
Atkins, who is an atheist, has also written and spoken on issues of humanism, atheism, and what he sees as the incompatibility between science and religion. He is the Senior Member for the Oxford Secular Society.
Atkins studied chemistry at the University of Leicester, obtaining a bachelor's degree in chemistry and in 1964 a Ph.D. for research into electron spin resonance and other aspects of theoretical chemistry. In 1969, he won the Royal Society of Chemistry's Meldola Medal. Atkins then taught physical chemistry at UCLA and later at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he has been ever since.
Atkins married fellow scientist Susan Greenfield (later Baroness Greenfield) in 1990. The couple divorced in 2003.
Atkins is known to lecture quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry courses (up to graduate level) at the University of Oxford.
External links
- Atkins' web page at Lincoln College
- Transcript of debate with theist William Lane Craig
- Articles by Peter Atkins at Infidels.org
1940 births | Living people | English chemists | Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford
"Peter Atkins"