Anthony Leonid Turkevich - Obituary

Abstract

Anthony Leonid Turkevich, a nuclear radiochemist and physicist and a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, died in his sleep on 7 September 2002 at his home in Lexington, Virginia. He was widely esteemed for his great intellectual powers, deep physical insight, and personal integrity. Tony was born in New York City on 23 July 1916, the son of a Russian Orthodox clergyman who became a head of the Russian Orthodox Church in both North America and Japan. In 1937, Tony earned a BA from Dartmouth College and, in 1940, a PhD in physical chemistry from Princeton University. His doctoral work was on diffusion determination of molecular structures and dielectric investigations of the motion of organic molecules in the solid state. Shortly after his graduation, he was invited to the University of Chicago as a research physicist in the department of physics; he worked on UV spectroscopy and the radiochemical studies of the fission products.