Srihari Keshavamurthy

New thoughts on old paradigms I: Transition states and reaction mechanisms

The concepts of transition states and reaction mechanisms have been around
for more than a century. Indeed, these concepts have shaped modern
chemistry as we know it and it is hard to think of understanding chemical
reactivity without them. In fact, we have gotten so comfortable with these
models that we believe every reaction must conform to `the paradigm’.
However, over the last two decades, thanks to developments in experiments
and theory, uncomfortable questions are being asked about the usual
assumptions that one makes to deduce the reaction mechanisms. Are these
examples just exceptions? Can we still fit these new observations by
making small extensions to the old paradigm? Or, do we have to shift
paradigms altogether? In this talk (part one of two) I will briefly
introduce and discuss some of these recent developments and the challenges
that they pose.

Srihari Keshavamurthy is a professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute
of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. Srihari obtained his Ph.D. in chemical physics
from the University of California Berkeley under the guidance of William
H. Miller. After post-doctoral research with Gregory S. Ezra at Cornell
University he joined IIT Kanpur in 1996. His research interests are in the
field of chemical reaction dynamics with an emphasis on the mechanisms of
intramolecular vibrational energy flow, quantum control, and dynamical
tunneling. Srihari received the Gopal Das Bhandari memorial outstanding
teacher award at IIT Kanpur in 2008, the Chemical Research Society of
India (CRSI) Bronze Medal in 2016, and the Indian National Science Academy
(INSA) Teachers award in 2017.