John Shipley Rowlinson

Born in Handforth, Cheshire, on 12 May 1926,[1] Rowlinson attended the independent Rossall School in Fleetwood.[2] He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where in 1944 he was awarded a Millard scholarship to read Chemistry.[2] His tutor was Professor Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, who was the first head of the Physical Chemistry Laboratory.[2] He graduated with first-class honours in 1948. After graduation, he continued his studies at Oxford and received a D. Phil in 1950 in chemical kinetics, working under J. D. Lambert.[3][1][2]

In 1950, Rowlinson won a Fulbright scholarship and became a research associate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There, he was member of Joseph O. Hirschfelder's team and worked with C. F. Curtiss on various topics in physical chemistry.[2] In 1951 he moved to the University of Manchester where he worked as a Fellow.[1] Subsequently, he became lecturer and senior lecturer at the same university.[1]

In 1961, Rowlinson was appointed Professor in Chemical Technology at Imperial College London.[2] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1970.[4][5] In 1974, he moved to Oxford as Dr Lee's Professor of Chemistry.[2] He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1976.[3] He received the Faraday Lectureship Prize in 1983 for 'exceptional contributions to physical or theoretical chemistry'.[3] He retired in 1993, becoming an Emeritus Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.[3] After his formal retirement he continued to write scientific papers.[6] He was knighted in the 2000 Birthday Honours.[1] In 2008, he received the Sidney M. Edelstein Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.[7]

Capillarity (experiment onboard the International Space Station pictured) was one of Rowlinson's main areas of focus.

Throughout his career, Rowlinson wrote more than 200 papers and book chapters.[8] While he contributed to a wide range of topics, his main areas of focus were capillarity and cohesion (forces that make molecules 'stick' together).[8] His Molecular Theory of Capillarity—co-written with Benjamin Widom in 1982—is widely cited in scientific and engineering literatures: it had more than 2,000 citations by 2010.[6] His earlier work, Liquids and Liquid Mixtures (1958) is also similarly popular and is described by Widom as a "classic".[6] His acclaimed 2002 work Cohesion described intermolecular forces, their scientific history and their effect on properties of matter in great detail.[1] He also co-wrote a textbook Thermodynamics for Chemical Engineers (1975).[8] Other scientific topics he wrote about include phase transitions, critical phenomena, computer simulations of interfaces, glaciers, and information theory.[9]

Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837 – 1923), the Dutch physicist who was the subject of many works of Rowlinson.

In addition to his technical works, Rowlinson wrote about the history of science.[6] His works on this topic began with the Nature paper The Legacy of van der Waals in 1973.[8] He followed it up with further works on Johannes Diderik van der Waals, including a 1988 translation of van der Waals' doctoral thesis, and a 1996 biography of the Dutch physicist.[8] His colleague Benjamin Widom praised the translation as "no less[...] than a masterwork" and the accompanying introduction "brilliant both as science and as history".[6] His Molecular Theory of Capillarity also treats the topic's history in addition to its technical aspect.[10]

Rowlinson also contributed to the administration of science in his native United Kingdom.[1] He expanded the scope of Oxford's physical chemistry research and history of science teaching.[1][8] He supported Oxford's collection displayed at the Museum of the History of Science.[8] He was the editor of the journal Molecular Physics.[1]

Rowlinson routinely climbed the Swiss Alps and had also climbed in the Himalayas.[6] He was an active member of the Exeter College community at Oxford and regularly attended its lunches and alumni events.[3] He died on 15 August 2018.[3]