|
This 16th and latest volume is one of the longest in a projected 22-volume series of autobiographies of 20th-century organic chemists. Only 1984 Nobel chemistry laureate R. Bruce Merrifield's volume (Life During a Golden Age of Peptide Chemistry, 1993, 297 pp), which makes extensive use of excerpts from his laboratory notebooks, exceeds it in length. Furthermore, its 612 references and 548 structural formulas set a record in documentation and depth of coverage of chemistry for the series (Previously, Carl Djerassil's volume Steroids Made It Possible (1990), with its 323 references--about half the number in Huisgen's book--set the record for meticulous documentation in the series). This quantitative summary is a simple way of indicating that the emphasis in Huisgen's book is on his multifaceted chemical contributions.
In 1952, at the early age of 32, Huisgen accepted the prestigious chair of organic chemistry at the University of Munich previously occupied by three Nobel laureates in a row, including his teacher, mentor, and friend Heinrich Wieland. Within a relatively short time his laboratory, once a stronghold of natural products chemistry, became one of the foremost German schools in physical organic chemistry and reaction mechanisms, and Huisgen became the most-frequently cited German chemist. Believing that "Kinetic arguments are crystal clear and cannot be overturned," Huisgen and his 150 Doktoranden and 75 postdoctoral fellows have made pioneering contributions to diazo compounds, medium-sized ring effects, electrophilic azo compounds and azomethine imines, benzyne chemistry, azoles and azides, 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions, electrocyclic reactions, 1,4-dipolar cycloadditions, (2+2) cycloadditions of ketenes, and (2+2) cycloadditions of donor and acceptor olefins, topics that are discussed in 10 detailed technical chapters, which are framed by an introductory chapter and a concluding chapter on the more personal aspects of his career and his thoughts on chemistry and science in general.
In the first and last chapters Huisgen discusses his youth, education, and growing up during the Hitler years; the war and postwar years; his role models Wieland, Meerwein, and Criegee; West Germany's miraculous economic recovery (Wirtschaftswunder); editorships; cooperative research with some of the "greats" of organic chemistry; marriage and family life; travels; honors and awards; hobbies, including art collecting; beauty in art and science; differences between the German and other educational systems; writing, publishing, lecturing, and consulting; grants; research financing; fashions in research; relations between industry and university; the future of reaction mechanisms; and many other interesting subjects. Huisgen's command of English is excellent. (We discovered only five minor misspellings), and his book is spiced with numerous appropriate quotations and aphorisms by classic and modern authors, which he admits to collecting. This entertaining, informative, and attractively priced volume, graced with 60 illustrations (most are formal and informal photographs of his students and colleagues), will be of interest to both present and future generations of students and instructors of courses in chemistry and the history of science as well as to all persons concerned with the human aspects of science.
|
Citation
