Editing John Pople (section)

===Ab initio electronic structure theory===
Pople pioneered the development of more sophisticated computational methods, called [[ab initio quantum chemistry methods]], that use [[Basis sets used in computational chemistry|basis sets]] of either [[Slater type orbital]]s or [[Gaussian orbital]]s to model the wave function. While in the early days these calculations were extremely expensive to perform, the advent of high speed microprocessors has made them much more feasible today. He was instrumental in the development of one of the most widely used [[computational chemistry]] packages, the [[Gaussian (software)|Gaussian]] suite of programs, including coauthorship of the first version, Gaussian 70.<ref>[http://www.gaussian.com/g_people/pople.htm Gaussian's page on John Pople] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100724203720/http://www.gaussian.com/g_people/pople.htm |date=24 July 2010 }}</ref> One of his most important original contributions is the concept of a model chemistry whereby a method is rigorously evaluated across a range of molecules.<ref name=frisch/><ref>{{cite journal | last=Pople | first=J. A.
| title=Theoretical Models for Chemistry| journal=Proceedings of the Summer Research Conference on Theoretical Chemistry, Energy Structure and Reactivity|editor= D. W. Smith | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | location=New York | year=1973 }}</ref> His research group developed the [[quantum chemistry composite methods]] such as Gaussian-1 (G1) and Gaussian-2 (G2). In 1991, Pople stopped working on Gaussian and several years later he developed (with others) the [[Q-Chem]] [[computational chemistry]] program.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.q-chem.com/people/pople.html |title=Pople's Q-Chem page |access-date=11 September 2007 |archive-date=18 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110518062331/http://www.q-chem.com/people/pople.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Prof. Pople's departure from Gaussian, along with the subsequent banning of many prominent scientists, including himself, from using the software gave rise to considerable controversy among the quantum chemistry community.<ref name="Giles2004">{{cite journal|last1=Giles|first1=Jim|title=Software company bans competitive users|journal=Nature|volume=429|issue=6989|year=2004|pages=231|issn=0028-0836|doi=10.1038/429231a|pmid=15152213|bibcode=2004Natur.429..231G|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The Gaussian molecular orbital methods were described in the 1986 book ''Ab initio molecular orbital theory'' by Warren Hehre, Leo Radom, Paul v.R. Schleyer and Pople.<ref>{{cite web|title=AB INITIO Molecular Orbital Theory|url=http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471812412.html|publisher=Wiley|access-date=8 October 2015}}</ref>