astronomy

Paul Bohn

Paul Bohn is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Paul Bohn rather than just read about it. In short: Paul William Bohn (born 1955) is an American chemist who researches molecular nanotechnology. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Society for Applied Spectroscopy, as well as a co-editor of the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry.

Key takeaways

Paul Bohn belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Paul Bohn to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Paul Bohn from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Paul William Bohn (born 1955) is an American chemist who researches molecular nanotechnology. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Society for Applied Spectroscopy, as well as a co-editor of the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry.

Early life and education Paul William Bohn was born in 1955 in Kentucky to parents Catherine née Nally and Joseph Robert Bohn. He grew up with one brother. He attended the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He then attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for a PhD in chemistry, graduating in 1981.

Career Bohn’s PhD training focused on the analytical chemistry of resist materials for x-ray lithography. His research primarily addresses molecular nanotechnology, particularly nanofluidics, combined electrochemistry and fluorescence spectroscopy of low-volume samples, nanophotonic/nanoelectronic devices, such as the electrochemical zero-mode waveguide, and multimodal chemical imaging of microbial communities. After finishing his PhD, Bohn worked at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey in the Special Materials Group from 1981 to 1983. In 1983, he accepted a faculty position as an assistant professor at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; in 1989 he was promoted to associate professor, and in 1992 he became a full professor. He was head of its chemistry department from 1994 to 1999. In 2001 and 2002 he was the Interim Vice Chancellor for Research. He was the Centennial Professor of the Chemical Sciences from 2003 to 2006, at which point he joined the University of Notre Dame as the Arthur J. Schmitt Professor. Together with Xiuling Li, he developed metal assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) for the preparation of high aspect-ratio solid state nanostructures. He also pioneered nanopore electrode arrays for single entity measurements as well as the electrochemical zero-mode waveguide. He previously served as Editor of Analyst and is currently co-editor of the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry. He is the founding Director of the Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health, the Director of the Center for Bioanalytic Metrology – an NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center, and a founding member of the Indiana Consortium for Analytical Science and Engineering. He has also served as Program Chair, Chair, and Immediate Past Chair of the Analytical Division of the American Chemical Society.

Awards and honors He received the Coblentz Award in 1990 for his contributions to molecular spectroscopy, awarded to scientists younger than 36. He was also the recipient of the Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Society Award in 2004, the 2005 Bomem-Michelson Award from the Coblentz Society, the 2010 Theophilus Redwood Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is the only person to have received the American Chemical Society Award in Spectrochemical Analysis (1997) and Electrochemistry (2017), and he is the recipient of the 2022 Charles N. Reilley Award of the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, and Society for Applied Spectroscopy. He was named one of the world’s 20 Most Influential Analytical Scientists in 2019 by The Analytical Scientist.

Personal life He is married to Raylene Bohn and has two children.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Paul Bohn

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Paul Bohn claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Paul Bohn before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Paul Bohn ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Paul Bohn

In research: Paul Bohn appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Paul Bohn in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Paul Bohn is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1955 births, Annual Reviews (publisher) editors, Chemists from Kentucky, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Paul Bohn outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Paul Bohn in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Paul Bohn means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Paul Bohn out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Paul Bohn in simple terms?

Why does Paul Bohn matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Paul Bohn?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Paul Bohn.