Peter Atkins

Peter Atkins (born August 10, 1940) is an English chemist, author, and secular advocate. A fellow of Lincoln College and former professor of chemistry at the University of Oxford, he is globally renowned for authoring foundational university textbooks, most notably Atkins' Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Alongside his academic contributions, Atkins is a vocal proponent of scientific materialism, secular humanism, and atheism, having written popular science books like On Being and participating in public debates on science, religion, and the origin of the universe against prominent theologians and philosophers.