The mechanisms of chemical reactions can be studied with quantum-chemical methods. The Schrödinger equation gives an energy for each molecular structure. The energy curve for a given reaction path, which passes through different intermediate states (minima) and transition states (maxima), shows whether that particular mechanism is possible. The diagram shows possible mechanisms for how…

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I was born on July 23rd, 1906 in Sarajevo in the province of Bosnia, which then belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and later, in 1918, became part of Yugoslavia. In the western world my birthplace has a somewhat sinister reputation that was characterized by an older tax-inspector in the Midwest of America as “the place…

François Auguste Victor Grignard was born in Cherbourg on May 6, 1871. He attended local schools during 1883-87 and in 1889 he won a scholarship to the École Normale Spécial at Cluny. After two years, the school, which was intended to produce teachers for modern secondary schools, was closed because of a dispute between supporters…

John Howard Northrop was born in Yonkers, New York, on July 5th, 1891. He is a direct descendant of Joseph Northrop who settled in New Milford, Connecticut in 1639, of Jonathan Edwards, President of Princeton University, 1758, and of Frederick C. Havemeyer, whose family presented Havemeyer Hall, the Chemical Laboratory, to Columbia University. His father,…

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Presentation Speech by Professor A. Fredga, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry of Your Majesties, Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen. With this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the Academy of Sciences wished to signalize the discovery and development of diene synthesis. This achievement falls within the domain of classical organic chemistry- the chemistry of…

18 October 1982 has decided to award the 1982 Nobel Prize for chemistry to Ph.D. Aaron Klug, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes. DEPICTING THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE Life is a chemical phenomenon. Living organisms are…

Presentation Speech by Professor Gunnar von Heijne of the , December 10, 2003. Translation of the Swedish text. Professor Gunnar von Heijne delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, In the days of Alfred Nobel, the…