Jan Peter Toennies

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Jan Peter Toennies (born 3 May 1930) is an American scientist and former director of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization.

Early life and education[]

He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to German immigrant parents. He is the grandson of sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies.

He graduated from Lower Merion High School, outside of Philadelphia in 1948, from Amherst College, with a B.A. in 1952, and from Brown University, with a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1957. During graduate school he was a Fulbright student in Göttingen 1953–1954.

Prizes and special recognition[]

• 1964 Physics Prize of the Academy of Sciences, Göttingen
• 1983 "Fellow" of the American Physical Society
• 1988 Alumni Citation, Brown University
• 1990 Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen
• 1991 Gold Heyrovsky Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences
• 1992 Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize for solid state physics
• 1992 Max-Planck-Prize of the Germany Research Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
• 1993 Member of the Germany Academy of Natural Scientists "Leopoldina" in Halle, Germany
• 1996 Recipient of the first MOLEC Conference Award
• 1999 Honorary Fellow of the International Molecular Beams Symposium
• 2000 Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2002 Stern-Gerlach Gold Medal of the German Physical Society
• 2005 Kolos Medal of University of Warsaw
• 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics (with Giacinto Scoles)
• 2007 Honorary Doctorate in Science, Amherst College, MA, USA
• 2013 Herschbach Award of the Dynamics of Molecular Collicions Conference Series
• 2015 Gold Medal of the City of Toulouse, France
• 2016 Gerhard Ertl Award Lecture, Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin

See also[]

• Timeline of low-temperature technology
• Holstein–Herring method

Monographs[]

• E. F. Greene and J. Peter Toennies: Chemische Reaktionen in Stoßwellen, Dr. Dietrich Steinkopff Verlag, Darmstadt, 1959
• E. F. Greene and J. Peter Toennies: Chemical Reactions in Shock Waves, Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd. London, 1964
• G. Benedek and J. Peter Toennies: Atomic Scale Dynamics at Surfaces: Theory and Experimental Studies with Helium Atom Scattering, Springer, Heidelberg, 2018

References[]

• Z. Herman (1995). "Jan Peter Toennies On his 65th Birthday". Berichte der Bunsengesellschaft für physikalische Chemie. 99 (5): 781–782. doi:10.1002/bbpc.19950990516.
• J.P. Toennies (2004). "Serendipitous meanderings and adventures with molecular beams". Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 55: 1–33. Bibcode:2004ARPC...55....1T. doi:10.1146/annurev.physchem.55.081203.151413. PMID 15117245.
• G. Benedek; M. Lewerenz; G. Niedner-Schateburg; A. Vilesov (2011). "Special-Issue: J. Peter Toennies Festschrift". The Journal of Physical Chemistry. 115 (25): 6739–7399. ISSN 1089-5639.
• G. Benedek; J. R. Manson; S. Miret-Artes, eds. (2021). "Festschrift for Peter Toennies - New horizons in the dynamics of molecules: from gases to surfaces". Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 23 (13): 7507–8076. ISSN 1463-9076.