English 10 October 2001 has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2001 for the development of catalytic asymmetric synthesis, with one half jointly to William S. Knowles St Louis, Missouri, USA, and Ryoji Noyori Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya, Japan, “for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions” and the other half to…

Plastics are polymers, molecules formed of many identical units bound to each other like pearls in a necklace. For a polymer to be electrically conductive it must “imitate” a metal – the electrons in the bonds must be freely mobile and not bound fast to the atoms. One condition for this is that the polymer…

Swedish 10 oktober 2001 har beslutat att utdela Nobelpriset i kemi år 2001 för utvecklandet av katalytisk asymmetrisk syntes, med ena halvan gemensamt till William S. Knowles St Louis, Missouri, USA och Ryoji NoyoriNagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya, Japan “för deras arbeten över kiralt katalyserade hydrogeneringsreaktioner” och den andra halvan av priset till K. Barry SharplessThe…

For the ten years from the third grade of elementary school to the end of high school, I lived in the small city of Takayama, a town of less than sixty thousand, located in the middle of Honshu, Japan. Even though it was far away from Japan’s principal cities, Takayama has been called a “little…

William Ramsay was born in Glasgow on October 2, 1852, the son of William Ramsay, C.E. and Catherine, née Robertson. He was a nephew of the geologist, Sir Andrew Ramsay. Until 1870 he studied in his native town, following this with a period in Fittig’s laboratory at Tübingen until 1872. While there his thesis on…

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Presentation Speech by Professor Per Ahlberg of the , December 10, 2001. Translation of the Swedish text. Professor Per Ahlberg delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honoured Nobel Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen, Science is exciting. At least I…

Presentation Speech by Professor Bertil Andersson of the , December 10, 1989 Translation from the Swedish text Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, The cells making up such living organisms as bacteria, plants, animals and human beings can be looked upon as chemical miracles. Simultaneously occurring in each and every one of these…

Presentation Speech by Professor Astrid Gräslund of the , December 10, 2002. Translation of the Swedish text. Professor Astrid Gräslund delivering the Presentation Speech for the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the Stockholm Concert Hall.   Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, What would life be without proteins! Proteins are…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2005 This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is to be shared by three scientists: Frenchman Yves Chauvin and Americans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences citation runs “for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis”. The Laureates’ contributions have already assumed…