Odd Hassel, Norwegian physical chemist, whose research on the structure of cyclohexane laid the ground work for conformational analysis. He shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1969 with Sir Derek Barton.

Tadeusz Reichstein, Polish-born organic chemist who worked in Switzerland, was one of the first to synthesize vitamin C (ascorbic acid) after it was isolated and identified in 1932. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 with P. S. Hench and E. C. Kendall for his work on corticoid hormones.

Vitamin C

Sir John Cockcroft, British physicist, working with T. S. Walton, developed a voltage multiplier that was used to accelerate protons. The accelerated protons were used to bombard lithium, producing alpha particles (helium nuclei). He and Walton shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951.

Georg Wittig, German organic chemist, developed the reaction between a carbonyl compound (an aldehyde or ketone) and an organophosphorous compound to produce an alkene containing the groups from both starting materials. He shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1979 with H. C. Brown.

Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, British physical chemist, studied reaction rates and reaction mechanisms. His studies of how water was formed from hydrogen and oxygen led to a better understanding of chain reactions. He shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1956 with Nicolay Semyonov.

Ralph Wycoff, American crystallographer, was one of the first to use X-ray methods for studying biological substances. He also developed other techniques for working with and studying submicroscopic structures, such as ultracentrifuges and electron microscopy. Working with R. C. Williams, he developed a method for visualizing the three dimensional nature of objects in an electron microscope.

Electron micrograph of a motile bacterium

Irene Joliot-Curie, French physicist and daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie, collaborating with her husband, Frederic Joliot, studied the effects of bombarding aluminum and other light elements with alpha particles. Their studies led to the discovery of artificial radioactivity and, in 1935, the pair shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Ronald Norrish, British physical chemist, studied extremely fast chemical reactions using flash photolysis and flash spectroscopy. He shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1967 with his coworker Sir George Porter and Manfred Eigen.

Patrick Blackett, British physicist, examined cloud chamber photographs looking for evidence of alpha particles colliding with nitrogen atoms. From 20,000 photographs containing 400,000 alpha particle tracks, he found eight tracks with which he could establish that the alpha particle was captured by the nitrogen nucleus. The resulting nucleus split into oxygen and a proton. He was also the first to demonstrate the conversion of energy into matter by irradiating lead with gamma rays. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948.

Sesquicentennial Birthdays: 1847

Joseph Lebel, French chemist, proposed a theory of the relationship of optical activity to molecular structure in 1874. His announcement of his theory was independent of the tetrahedral arrangement of bonds to carbon atoms proposed by van't Hoff two months later.

Thomas Edison, American inventor, was the most prolific of all inventors, patenting nearly 1,300 inventions in his lifetime.

Alexander Graham Bell, American inventor, who besides inventing the telephone founded the journal Science in 1883.

Otto Wallach, German organic chemist, determined the structures of organic compounds from essential oils known as terpenes. The terpenes were similar in structure and in physical properties making the separation, purification, and analysis extremely challenging. The structural similarities of the compounds led Wallach to propose that the compounds were derived from isoprene. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1910.

Bicentennial Birthday: 1797

Carl Mosander, Swedish chemist, who discovered lanthanum, yttrium, erbium, and terbium.

Other Historical Events

Drawing from 1606 edition of Libavius's Alchemia

1597 Alchemia by Andreas Libavius, one of the first important textbooks on chemistry is published ·1697 Georg Stahl introduces the concept of phlogiston ·1797 Louis Nicolas Vauquelin discovers chromium ·1847 Asranio Sobrero discovers nitroglycerine ·1897 Victor Meyer dies. Paul Sabatier discovers catalytic hydrogenation of organic compounds. J. J. Thomson discovers the electron ·1947 J. N. Bronsted dies. Moses Gomberg dies.