Understanding the motions of the constituent atoms in reacting molecules lies at the heart of chemistry and is the central focus of chemical reaction dynamics. The most detailed questions one can ask are about the evolution of molecules prepared in a single quantum state to products in individual states, and both calculations and experiments are providing such detailed understanding of increasi...

The 157th Faraday Discussion represented a historic turning point in the development of the field of reaction dynamics because it concerned itself with how reactions occur in gases, in liquid, and at interfaces. Never before has the attempt been made to unify the various approaches to reaction dynamics in one Faraday Discussion meeting and to discover what language was common and what was speci...

The study of surface chemical reaction dynamics is crucial to many important areas of research such as heterogeneous catalysis, photocatalysis, material corrosion and etching, to name just a few. Many fundamental questions, for example mechanisms of important catalytic reactions, rely on the study of surface reaction dynamics. Prof. Gerhard Ertl’s achievements in this area exemplify the importa...

With new laser techniques and with gas phase and molecular beam experiments, it is now possible to determine the ultrafast motion in isolated chemical reactions-chemistry on the I 0 l 3 -second time scale. A decade ago this magazine devoted a special issue to laser chemistry (see PHYSICS TODAY, November 1980). One of the articles emphasized the importance of time scales in chemical reactions an...