Professor Ian W M Smith, CChem, FRSC, FRS

Many members of the Royal Society of Chemistry, including alumni, former staff and student members at the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham, will remember with great affection Professor Ian Smith, FRS, who died on 8 November 2016.  He was 79 years old.  After about 20 years on the Staff at the University of Cambridge, he was appointed to the Chair of Physical Chemistry at the University of Birmingham in 1985, made Mason Professor in 1991, awarded an FRS in 1995, and was President of the Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 2001 to 2003.  He made a major contribution to the establishment of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, now one of the leading international journals published by the RSC in this branch of Chemistry.  He was Head of School in Birmingham from 1989 to 1993, then briefly in 2001; he would be the first to say they were not his happiest years!  Moving back to Cambridge, he retired in 2002, but carried out active research and writing for the following c. 12 years.

Ian was a superb kineticist. He made fundamental contributions to the subject, with important applications of his work in combustion, astrochemistry and atmospheric chemistry.  He was among the first to exploit and develop new spectroscopic techniques and combinations of techniques to measure rate and state-to-state data for elementary processes.  Arguably his most important contribution to science, which will be remembered for decades, will be the project he developed in the late 1980s in Birmingham to extend the measurement of gas-phase rate coefficients down to very low temperatures, as low as 8 K.  For certain types of reactions involving free radicals, he discovered that reactions can get faster as the temperature was reduced; this is sometimes called an inverse Arrhenius behaviour.  This fact has enormous implications for the subject of astrochemistry, that certain free radicals reactions must be allowed for in the chemical models of how the Universe developed, that evolved from nothing in the 1990s.

Ian's family write:  "We have lost a kind and loyal family man, an exceptional scientist and an enthusiastic cricketer.  We miss his caring heart, his sharp mind and his cheeky humour."  The family have set up an email address (below)  to send and receive messages about his passing.  This is likely to be published sometime in 2019.  Please send comments if you wish to contribute.  Colleagues will also be sad to learn that Ian's loving wife for 55 years, Sue, died six months later on 17 May 2017 in the same nursing home in Cambridge where Ian and Sue spent the last months of their lives; one mile from Thomas Graham House!  

Ian was a remarkable scientist, but much more than that - a devoted husband, father of four and grandfather of 11.  He was a man of true integrity, so lacking in Higher Education these days, an inspiring teacher and a dear friend to many.  A full memoir for Ian was published in the Royal Society Memoirs, in February 2018, written by Professor Gus Hancock (University of Oxford), Ian's first research student.  If anyone is interested and they cannot download themselves, Richard Tuckett can send them the final PDF document.

Richard Tuckett FRSC
August 2018