Deaths on March 13

Michael P. Barnett, English chemist and computer scientist (b. 1929)

Michael Peter Barnett (24 March 1929 – 13 March 2012) was a British theoretical chemist and computer scientist. He developed mathematical and computer techniques for quantum chemical problems, and some of the earliest software for several other kinds of computer application. After his early days in London, Essex and Lancashire, he went to King's College, London, in 1945, the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern in 1953, IBM UK in 1955, the University of Wisconsin Department of Chemistry in 1957, and the MIT Solid State and Molecular Theory Group in 1958.

At MIT he was an associate professor of physics and director of the Cooperative Computing Laboratory. He returned to England, to the Institute of Computer Science of the University of London in 1964, and then back to United States the following year. He worked in industry, and taught at Columbia University 1975–77 and the City University of New York, 1977–96, retiring as an emeritus professor. After retirement he focused on symbolic calculation in quantum chemistry and nuclear magnetic resonance.