Computational chemistry

Abstract

Computational chemistry has come of age. With significant strides in computer hardware and software over the last few decades, computational chemistry has achieved full partnership with theory and experiment as a tool for understanding and predicting the behavior of a broad range of chemical, physical, and biological phenomena. The Nobel Prize award to John Pople and Walter Kohn in 1998 highlighted the importance of these advances in computational chemistry. With massively parallel computers capable of peak performance of several teraflops already on the scene and with the development of parallel software for efficient exploitation of these high-end computers, we can anticipate that computational chemistry will continue to change the scientific landscape throughout the coming century. The impact of these advances will be broad and encompassing, because chemistry is so central to the myriad of advances we anticipate in areas such as materials design, biological sciences, and chemical manufacturing.