23 October 1973 has decided to award the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry half each to: Professor Ernst Otto Fischer, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Federal Republic of Germany and Professor Geoffrey Wilkinson, Imperial College, London, Great Britain for their pioneering work performed independently on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds. “Chemistry…

There’s more to chlorophyll than simply providing plant leaves with their natural green colouring. Chlorophyll is part of the engine that drives photosynthesis, possibly the most important reaction on earth, in which light is absorbed from the sun and converted into chemical energy to fuel the growth of plants. Our understanding of the chemistry of…

more

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2010 There is an increasing need for complex chemicals. Humanity wants new medicines that can cure cancer or halt the devastating effects of deadly viruses in the human body. The electronics industry is searching for substances that can emit light, and the agricultural industry wants substances that can protect crops.…

more

Products such as plastics, synthetic fibres, paints and pigments, pharmaceuticals and pesticides and many others have become readily available through the dynamic development of organic synthesis (the science of building organic molecules).     There are many ways to build a complex molecule from simple starting materials but to find the simplest way is often difficult. It…

more

I was born the eldest of three sons of Ryokichi Fukui, a foreign trade merchant and factory manager, and Chie Fukui, in Nara, Japan, on October 4, 1918. In my high school years, chemistry was not my favourite subject, but the most decisive occurrence in my educational career came when my father asked the advice…

Hermann Emil Fischer was born on October 9, 1852, at Euskirchen, in the Cologne district. His father was a successful business man. After three years with a private tutor, Emil went to the local school and then spent two years at school at Wetzlar, and two more at Bonn where he passed his final examination…

Irène Curie, born in Paris, September 12, 1897, was the daughter of , and since 1926 the wife of Frédéric Joliot. After having started her studies at the Faculty of Science in Paris, she served as a nurse radiographer during the First World War. She became Doctor of Science in 1925, having prepared a thesis…