1. Edition - February 1999
55.90 Euro
1999. XII, 195 Pages, Softcover
104 Fig., 1 Tab. 
- General Reading -
ISBN-10: 3-527-29754-5
ISBN-13: 978-3-527-29754-2 - Wiley-VCH, Weinheim








Short description
»This is a marvelous book of people and chemical ideas! The author, Jerome Berson, is known as a chemical stylist, a physical organic chemist possessed of the highest analytical powers. In a unique approach to the history of chemistry (indeed the history of science) he brings that style, as well as his insider's knowledge and a perceptive sensivity to the societal setting of chemists, to the analysis of some key chapters in modern organic chemistry.« Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate
Awarded with the of Literature prize 2000 (Fonds der Chemischen Industrie).

From the contents
INTRODUCTION
The Nature of Science and the History of Science
An Experiment
DISCOVERIES MISSED, DISCOVERIES MADE - TWO CASE STUDIES OF CREATIVITY IN CHEMISTRY
Science and the Individual
Diels, Alder, Their Competitors, and the Discovery of the Diene Synthesis
Thiele
The Alternation Effect and the Discovery of Orbital Symmetry
ERICH HÜCKEL AND THE THEORY OF AROMATICITY - REFLECTIONS ON THEORY AND EXPERIMENT
Debye-Hückel Theory of Electrolytic Solutions
Nature of the Double Bond
Hybridization in Double Bonds
Benzene Problem
MO Description of Conjugated Cyclic Compounds
Orbital Symmetry (Woodward-Hoffmann Rules)
Extension of Cyclic p-Electron MO Theory to Transition States of Pericyclic Reactions
Violation of Hund's Rule in Biradicals
Reflections on Hückel's Career
THE DIENONE-PHENOL MYSTERIES
Isolations of Estrogens
Approaches to the Estrogens by Aromatization of Ring A
Alicyclic Steroids
Woodward's Challenge
Misgivings about the Structures
Why did Woodward Undertake the Correction of the Phenolic Structures?
Woodward and the Total Synthesis of Steroids
Approaches and Achievements
Mechanistic Motivation
MEDITATIONS ON THE SPECIAL CONVICTIVE POWER OF SYMMETRIZATION EXPERIMENTS
Enolization as a Mechanism of Symmetrization
The Menthone Problem
Tricyclene and the Wagner-Meerwein Rearrangement
The Pinacol Controversy
The Favorskii Rearrangement
Symmetrization
Racemization Machines with no Achiral Parts
Direct Nucleophilic Displacement Reaction
The Walden Inversion
Biological and Evolutionary Attraction of Symmetry
Epilogue