Dudley R. Herschbach was a student from a non-scholarly background who, with the aid of fine teachers and university scholarships, developed an aptitude for scientific subjects into a distinguished career as a researcher and theorist. He was a pioneer in the field of molecular reaction dynamics --the study of the motions of atoms during chemical reactions. He was responsible for developing an experimental method called the molecular beam technique, which is used to examine the collision of molecules during the course of a reaction. Herschbach has also advanced the theoretical understanding of basic chemical processes, and for his contributions to this field, he shared with Yuan T. Lee and JohnC. Polanyi the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

The first of six children, Dudley Robert Herschbach was born in San Jose, California, on June 18, 1932, to Robert and Dorothy Beer Herschbach. His father was at that time a building contractor and...