George Claude Pimentel (May 2, 1922 – June 18, 1989) was a preeminent chemist and researcher, the inventor of the chemical laser, who was also dedicated to science education and public service.
In science education, he was best known for the CHEM STUDY project, a national effort to improve high-school chemistry teaching.
A revised version, Opportunities in Chemistry Today and Tomorrow, was used worldwide for high school and college students.
1943) and University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. 1949), Pimentel began teaching at Berkeley in 1949, where he remained until his death in 1989 from intestinal cancer, with a three year appointment as Deputy Director at the National Science Foundation under the Carter administration in Washington, D.C..[1][4] The ACS Award in Chemical Education was renamed the George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education in his honor in 1989.
Thus, Pimentel first transformed the chemical energy obtained as a result of vibrational excitation into laser radiation.