Kohn will be speaking from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Room 2132 in the Science Building 2 near the center of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge.

"It's a great honor for us to host him here on campus," said Adrian Herzog, chair of CSUN's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Herzog said the Nobel laureate has ties to the campus with his work in materials science with physics professor Nicholas Kiossis, director of CSUN's Materials Science Research Center.

Kohn, a physics professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara, was awarded the prestigious prize for development of density-functional theory, which simplifies the mathematical description of the bonding between atoms that make up molecules.

His approach makes calculations according to an average number of electrons located in any point, rather than trying to establish the motion of each electron in every atom in every molecule. This reliable model has enabled scientists to study large molecules that previously were too complex and unwieldy to understand.

The research has many applications such as in pharmaceuticals to study how proteins interact with other molecules, to study the makeup of interstellar matter, or to study chemical reactions in the ozone layer to make the atmosphere cleaner.

Walter Kohn was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1923. He was a professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh between 1950 and 1960, and at the University of California in San Diego from 1960 to 1970. He was director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara from 1979 to 1984, and still teaches in the university's physics department.

For more information about Kohn's visit, call the Department of Physics and Astronomy at (818) 677-2775.

California State University, Northridge has more than 27,000 full- and part-time students and offers 48 bachelor's and 39 master's degrees. Founded in 1958, it is the only four-year university in the San Fernando Valley.