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Chemistry for Everyone
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The History of Molecular Structure Determination Viewed through the Nobel Prizes
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William P. Jensen
Department of Chemistry, South Dakota State University, Borrkins, SD 57007Gus J. Palenik
The Center for Molecular Science, The University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7200 Il-Hwan Suh
Department of Physics, Chungnam National University, Taejon, 305-764, Korea
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July 2003
Vol. 80 No. 7
p. 753
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| Abstract |
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For the past 100 years, with only a few exceptions during war times, Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually to men and women who have made exceptionally important discoveries in science. In thirteen of those years, prizes were awarded to individuals whose contributions helped explain the molecular world of matter through interactions of waves or particles with atoms. From William C. Röntgen, who received the very first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for his work with X-rays, to von Laue and the father-and-son Bragg team in the second decade of the century, who used X-rays to understand atomic arrangements, much progress had been made revealing secrets at the molecular level of matter. In the 1930s Debye, Davisson, and Thomson revealed further information using, among other techniques, diffraction of electrons by matter. In the 1960s Crick, Watson, Wilkins, Perutz, Kendrew, and Hodgkin received Nobel Prizes for revealing structures of significantly more complex molecules including the DNA double helix, myoglobin, hemoglobin, and vitamin B12. In the 1970s and 1980s Lipscomb would be recognized for organizing our picture of boron hydrides, Klug would use electron diffraction to determine structures of important nucleic acid–protein complexes, Hauptman and Karle would bring us a powerful new way to solve structures, and Deisenhofer, Huber, and Michel would determine the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction center. Finally, in 1994 Brockhouse and Shull were recognized for their work with neutrons. Crystallography has been used to answer increasingly complex questions in the past, and will certainly remain an important tool in the future.
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| More Information |
 Citation |
Jensen, William P.; Palenik, Gus J.; Suh, Il-Hwan. J. Chem. Educ. 2003 80 753.
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Keywords |
Atomic Properties / Structure; Crystallography / Crystal Growth; History / Philosophy; Molecular Properties / Structure; X-ray Crystallography
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History |
Created:
Last Updated: |
June 4, 2003
February 28, 2005
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Link to Featured Molecules added (April 2004).
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