American chemist and physicist who received the 1966 Nobel Prize for
Chemistry for "fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the
electronic structure of molecules." Mulliken began working on his theory of molecular structure in the 1920s. He theoretically systematized the electron states of molecules in terms of molecular orbitals. Departing from the idea that electron orbitals for atoms are static and that atoms combine like building blocks to form molecules, he proposed that, when molecules are formed, the atoms' original electron configurations are changed into an overall molecular configuration. Further extending his theory, he developed (1952) a quantum-mechanical theory of the behaviour of electron orbitals as different atoms merge to form molecules. During World War II Mulliken worked on the Plutonium Project, part
of the development of the atomic bomb, at the University of Chicago.
In 1955 he served as scientific attache at the U.S. embassy in London.
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