R. B. Woodward: A Larger‐than‐Life Chemistry Rock Star

Seeman, Jeffrey I.

doi:10.1002/ange.201702635

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Lyndon Frederick Small , who had been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1941, was a Harvard Ph.D. (with James B. Conant ), and a prominent alkaloid chemist who specialized in the opiates when Woodward wrote this 1948 letter to Robinson . As a younger academic, Woodward was known to disparage elder chemists …”

Section: Woodward's Joy and Praisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…He would have been amused to see a collection of his letters published almost 40 years after his death. He very well might have accepted this as an offering to his greatness, given his vision of himself as being exceptional . Note that some of these excerpts are 75 years old!…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The year 2017 being the centenary of the birth of R. B. Woodward , it is fitting that several very recent publications and symposia honoring this great chemist have materialized. Woodward 's scientific legacy surely is based on his structure determinations, total syntheses, and mechanistic theories, including the Principle of Conservation of Orbital Symmetry .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Woodward 's scientific legacy surely is based on his structure determinations, total syntheses, and mechanistic theories, including the Principle of Conservation of Orbital Symmetry . He is also well known for his celebrity status, even for being a ‘chemistry rock star’ . Anecdotes abound about Woodward 's use of colored chalk and daiquiris in his multi‐hour lectures, his love of blue, his snuffing out his cigarettes in flammable solvents, his aura of nobility, and so on ( Figure ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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R. B. Woodward's Letters: Revealing, Elegant and Commanding

Seeman

2017

Helvetica Chimica Acta

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A collection of excerpts from letters written by R. B. Woodward to his friends, colleagues, young students and others is presented. These excerpts are representative of Woodward's lengthy correspondence and illustrate many aspects of his personality and philosophies of life.Keywords: Robert Burns Woodward, Organic synthesis, Philosophy of science, Biography, Sociology of science. IntroductionThe year 2017 being the centenary of the birth of R. B. Woodward, it is fitting that several very recent publications [5 -7] and symposia [8 -10] honoring this great chemist have materialized. Woodward's scientific legacy surely is based on his structure determinations, total syntheses, and mechanistic theories, including the Principle of Conservation of Orbital Symmetry. [11 -13] He is also well known for his celebrity status, even for being a 'chemistry rock star'. [6] Anecdotes abound about Woodward's use of colored chalk and daiquiris in his multi-hour lectures, his love of blue, his snuffing out his cigarettes in flammable solvents, his aura of nobility, and so on (Figure 1). Woodward's publications were elegantly written, and several recent papers illustrate his use of the grand style of writing in those publications. [4] [ 14 -16] As legendary as Woodward remains, there is much about Woodward that remains little known. For example, Woodward's love of Switzerland, his close friendship with many Swiss or converted-to-Swiss chemists, and even the all-too-short lived Woodward Research Institute [17] in Basel, Switzerland, funded by Ciba AG are largely unknown. Of course, Woodward's [18 -25] But what about the private R. B. Woodward? Was all the above just a performance for his adoring fans, and the real Woodward quite someone else? We can obtain a glimpse of the real if also semi-private R. B. Woodward in his letters to both friends and colleagues, especially when we examine over 40 years of his correspondence. These documents can be studied to obtain a deeper and more thorough understanding of and appreciation for this unique chemist. These letters may be historically important, revealing a side of chemistry that is not obvious from the chemical literature and that would be lost without archival records. [26] Or these letters simply can be enjoyed as entertaining and good fun, which they are. Indeed, we can peek into the unpublished letters of R. B. Woodward as voyeurs might snoop around the belongings of a celebrity about whom much is known -but not quite enough.What follows is a collection of letters and excerpts from letters found in the Woodward papers in the Harvard University Archives. These were certainly not intended for the general public. Hence, they were not written with posterity in mind. Rather, they were momentary diversions from Woodward's research focus, workplace tasks that only he could do and not assignable to his reliable and ever-present secretary Dolores Dyer (more on her in the sequel).This correspondence was required for the maintenance of Woodward's professional life, just as one brush...

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Section: Woodward's Joy and Praisementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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R. B. Woodward's Letters: Revealing, Elegant and Commanding

Seeman

2017

Helvetica Chimica Acta

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Die Evolution des Diels‐Alder‐Reaktionsmechanismus seit den 1930er Jahren: Woodward, Houk zusammen mit Woodward und der Einfluss der Computerchemie auf das Verständnis von Cycloadditionen

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Zhongyue(John) Yang (geb. in Tianjin, China) erhielt 2013 seinen B.S. in Chemie an der Nankai University und trat in das Programm fürtheoretische und rechnergestützte Chemiea nder UCLA ein. Unter der Anleitung von K. N. Houk entwickelte er in Zusammenarbeit mit C. Doubleday an der Columbia University Rechentools fürquasiklassische Simulationen der Reaktionsdynamik in kondensierten Medien. 2018-2020 war er Postdoc bei H. Kulik am MIT und entwickelte Analysemethoden fürq uantenmechanische Simulationenvon Enzymen und Peptiden.S eit August 2020 ist er Assistenzprofessor an der Vanderbilt University.

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Evolution of the Diels–Alder Reaction Mechanism since the 1930s: Woodward, Houk with Woodward, and the Influence of Computational Chemistry on Understanding Cycloadditions

et al. 2021

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This review article describes the evolution of Woodward's mechanistic thinking, beginning in the late 1930s and early 1940s with his proposal of a charge‐transfer mechanism for the Diels–Alder reaction, eventually leading to the Woodward–Katz two‐stage concerted mechanism in 1959, and then to its mechanistic solution in terms of orbital symmetry control. Houk′s research in the Woodward labs, testing the predictions of this theory, is described. Subsequent modern calculations with quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics simulations have shown that Woodward indeed had perfectly described not only the cyclopentadiene dimerization mechanism, but a new class of transition states now known as ambimodal or bis‐pericyclic transition states. In recent years, the Houk group has found that ambimodal reactions are operative in the [6+4] cycloaddition. Molecular dynamics simulations of many Diels–Alder and ambimodal cycloadditions provide a time‐resolved picture of how these reactions occur. Lastly, Roald Hoffmann provides a Coda in which he describes his joy in “being taken along the journey” of the cycloaddition story from Woodward's youth to today's trajectory simulations.

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R. B. Woodward: A Larger‐than‐Life Chemistry Rock Star

Cited by 6 publications

References 55 publications

R. B. Woodward's Letters: Revealing, Elegant and Commanding

R. B. Woodward's Letters: Revealing, Elegant and Commanding

Die Evolution des Diels‐Alder‐Reaktionsmechanismus seit den 1930er Jahren: Woodward, Houk zusammen mit Woodward und der Einfluss der Computerchemie auf das Verständnis von Cycloadditionen

Evolution of the Diels–Alder Reaction Mechanism since the 1930s: Woodward, Houk with Woodward, and the Influence of Computational Chemistry on Understanding Cycloadditions

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