# Isaiah Shavitt > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Isaiah_Shavitt > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Isaiah_Shavitt.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Shavitt > Source revision: 1350131338 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) **Isaiah Shavitt** (Hebrew: ישעיהו שביט) was a Polish-born Israeli and American [theoretical chemist](/source/Theoretical_chemist). ## Biography Isaiah Kruk (later Shavitt) [1] was born on July 29, 1925, in [Kutno](/source/Kutno), [Poland](/source/Second_Polish_Republic) but his family moved to what would become [Israel](/source/Israel) in 1929. After undergraduate degrees in [chemistry](/source/Chemistry) (1950) and [chemical engineering](/source/Chemical_engineering) (1951) from the [Technion](/source/Technion) in [Haifa](/source/Haifa), he started a Ph.D. in experimental physical chemistry, but shortly after traveled to [Cambridge University](/source/Cambridge_University) on a British Council Scholarship and completed his Ph.D. (1957) under the aegis of pioneering [computational chemist](/source/Computational_chemistry) [S. Francis Boys](/source/S._Francis_Boys).[2] ## Academic career Following postdoctoral work with [Joseph O. Hirschfelder](/source/Joseph_O._Hirschfelder), a stint as a temporary assistant professor at [Brandeis University](/source/Brandeis_University), and further postdoctoral research with [Martin Karplus](/source/Martin_Karplus), he became a professor at [his alma mater](/source/Technion_-_Israel_Institute_of_Technology) in 1962. In 1967 he moved to a senior research position at [Battelle Memorial Institute](/source/Battelle_Memorial_Institute) in [Columbus, Ohio](/source/Columbus,_Ohio), United States. In 1968 he also became a part-time faculty member at the department of chemistry at [Ohio State University](/source/Ohio_State_University) and moved there full-time in 1981. In 1994 he retired from this position and continued part-time as an emeritus professor. Until his death he was also an adjunct professor in the department of chemistry at the [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign](/source/University_of_Illinois_at_Urbana-Champaign), US.[2] Shavitt's landmark achievements include being responsible for two of the first applications of the then newly available computer to chemistry; developing the [Gaussian transform method](/source/Weierstrass_transform)[3] for calculating [multicenter integrals](/source/Multicenter_integral) of [Slater-type orbitals](/source/Slater-type_orbital); coining the concept of contracted [Gaussian-type orbitals](/source/Gaussian-type_orbital); the GUGA (Graphical Unitary Group Approach) to fast [configuration interaction](/source/Configuration_interaction) calculations; and major contributions to [coupled cluster](/source/Coupled_cluster) theory. He is one of the founding authors of the [COLUMBUS](/source/Columbus_(software)) suite of [ab initio](/source/Ab_initio_quantum_chemistry_methods) [computational chemistry](/source/Computational_chemistry) programs. An International Conference, entitled Molecular Quantum Mechanics: Methods and Applications" was held in memory of [S. Francis Boys](/source/S._Francis_Boys) and in honor of Isaiah Shavitt in September, 1995 at [St Catharine's College, Cambridge](/source/St_Catharine's_College,_Cambridge), and the proceedings published as a special issue[4] of the *[Journal of Physical Chemistry](/source/Journal_of_Physical_Chemistry)*. He was a member of the [International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science](/source/International_Academy_of_Quantum_Molecular_Science). Shavitt died at the age of 87 on Dec. 8, 2012 at [Carle Foundation Hospital](/source/Carle_Foundation_Hospital), Urbana.[1] ## References 1. ["Isaiah Shavitt"](http://www.news-gazette.com/obituaries/2012-12-11/isaiah-shavitt.html) 1. Kaldor, Uzi & Pitzer, Russell M. (1996). "Isaiah Shavitt". *Journal of Physical Chemistry*. **100** (15): 6017–6022. [doi:10.1021/jp9634666](https://doi.org/10.1021/jp9634666) 1. Shavitt, I. & Karplus, M. (1965). "Gaussian-Transform method for molecular integrals. I. Formulation for energy integrals". *J. Chem. Phys.*. **43** (2): 398. [Bibcode:1965JChPh..43..398S](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1965JChPh..43..398S). [doi:10.1063/1.1696757](https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1696757) 1. Journal of Physical Chemistry, 1996, 100 (15), [http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jpchax/100/15](http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jpchax/100/15) See also Zimmerman, S. C. & Pitzer, R. M. (2014). "Isaiah Shavitt: Computational chemistry pioneer". *Theoretical Chemistry Accounts*. **133** (6): 1488. [doi:10.1007/s00214-014-1488-3](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00214-014-1488-3). [S2CID 120618516](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:120618516) I.Shavitt in methods of computational Physics vol.2 Academic(1963) ## Published works - The Gaussian Function (1963) - The Method of Configuration Interaction (1977) - The Graphical Unitary Group Approach (1981) - Supercomputers and Chemistry (1981) - The Unitary Group (1983) - The Treatment of Electron Correlations (1984) - Unitary Group Approach (1988) - I. Shavitt and R. J. Bartlett, "Many-Body Methods in Chemistry and Physics" (Cambridge University Press, 2009), ISBN 978-0521818322 [https://www.amazon.com/Many-Body-Methods-Chemistry-Physics-Coupled-Cluster/dp/052181832X/](https://www.amazon.com/Many-Body-Methods-Chemistry-Physics-Coupled-Cluster/dp/052181832X/) ## External links - [doi:10.1021/jp9634666](https://doi.org/10.1021/jp9634666) A biography by [Uzi Kaldor](/source/Uzi_Kaldor) and [Russell M. Pitzer](/source/Russell_M._Pitzer). - [His International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science web page](http://www.iaqms.org/deceased/shavitt.php) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Isaiah Shavitt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Shavitt) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Shavitt?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.