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Preface

To learn about the theory of electron transfer reactions, I have followed, with David Mermin, “the time honored method of writing a book,” systematically interviewing the most famous scientist in the field, Professor Rudolph A. Marcus for whom I had the honor of being Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Most of the interviews took place through Skype connections between Rome and Pasadena, but some occurred at Caltech, and the first one happened on board of a Southwestern Airlines flight between Oakland and Burbank airports, while we were coming back to Pasadena from San Francisco. There, in October 2006, a Special Symposium of the American Chemical Society had been held to celebrate the 50th year from the publication of Marcus’ first paper on the theory, back in 1956.

I have written this book mainly to teach myself and I believe it may be useful for other beginners. The book aims at introducing the Marcus Theory of Electron Transfer Reactions from reading of Marcus’ papers. Only excerpts from each paper are cited which are important at first reading. The layout is, when possible, like that of lecture notes, more “open” and reader friendly than the layout of the original paper. In the text simple notes of the author are presented which may be of help to the student or the beginner. At the end of each paper are Marcus’ Notes with his comments and remarks, an accompaniment interesting to students and scholars in the field of electron transfer reactions. Finally, during the transcription of excerpts from the original papers, typos and small errata have been corrected.

In this book, 57 papers on the Marcus theory of electron transfer are considered, spanning the 30 years from 1956 to 1986. After an introductory chapter by the author, Marcus’ papers are described, either closely following their content or summarizing and abridging the original text. At the end of the first eight chapters, there are lists of references, in the subsequent three chapters only references to Marcus’ papers are reported in the form MN where M stands for Marcus and N is the order number in the official list of Marcus’ publications. The last two chapters report oral interviews with Marcus with notes on his papers.

I shall consider this work successful if it will help the reader to better appreciate the Marcus theory of electron transfer from its primary source, Marcus’ papers. A following book will contain oral interviews with Marcus with notes on his papers ranging from 1987 onward, up to the most recent ones.

F. Di Giacomo

Roma 2019