Obituary of Martin Sage (1935-2012)

MARTIN LEE SAGE, Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry at Syracuse University, died suddenly on February 3, 2012 at the age of 76. He was Professor from 1967 to 2006 and Professor Emeritus thereafter.

Professor Sage was born in New York City and graduated from Bronx Science High School. He earned a B.A. with distinction and honors in Chemistry from Cornell University in 1955 and a Ph. D. in Chemical Physics at Harvard University in 1959 under the guidance of E. Bright Wilson. He was a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Physics Department at Brandeis University (1959-1961) and a faculty member in Chemistry at the University of Oregon (1961-1967) before joining the faculty at Syracuse. Sabbaticals were spent at Tel Aviv University (1977-1978) and Oxford University (1985-1986). He was a member of the APS, ACS, Sigma Xi, and AAAS.

A Theoretical Chemist, his principal area of research focused on large amplitude molecular vibrations. He was actively investigating the effect of other vibrations on the observed potentials for X-H stretches, intermolecular interactions between non-bonded hydrogen atoms, and various potential forms for X-H bonds. He used ab initio methods and had developed computer algebra techniques for dealing with large amplitude and coupled vibrations.

Prof. Sage was a co-founder of Syracuse University’s first program in Science, Technology and Society (STS). He helped develop the first courses for the program, and ran the program almost single-handedly for several years.

Dr. Sage had a wide range of interests and enjoyed tennis, skiing, handball, squash, hiking and birding. He was active in, and served on boards of, environmental, conservation, civic, chamber music, and Middle East dialog groups.

Martin Sage is survived by his wife of 53 years, Gloria, and son, Daniel.