Abstract
In 1956 Ronald Nyholm proclaimed the renaissance of inorganic chemistry in his inaugural address as Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, where he had recently arrived (from Australia).
Inorganic chemistry is not general chemistry.… Inorganic chemistry is not general chemistry.
Therald Moeller, Inorganic Chemistry: An Advanced Textbook (1952)
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Notes
- 1.
F. Albert Cotton (1930-2007) was a graduate student with Geoffrey Wilkinson (see Chap. 4) at Harvard, joining the faculty at MIT in 1955, and moving thence to Texas A&M in 1972. He was one of the most prominent figures in the field of inorganic chemistry throughout the second half of the twentieth century, known for his work in structural chemistry, especially that of species with multiple metal–metal bonds; for the many students and postdocs he trained and sent on to academic positions (see Fig. 5.10); and for the important textbook Advanced Inorganic Chemistry that he co-authored with Wilkinson.
- 2.
See the section at the end of the book “Notes on quantitative methodology” for explanations of how and from where these data were assembled.
- 3.
The first edition was called “Facilities, Publications and Doctoral Theses in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at US Universities, 1953;” the title DGR was used subsequently.
- 4.
Probably there were a few more that didn’t get around to submitting data—indeed there was certainly at least one such, as there is no listing for Harvard in the 1953 edition!
- 5.
Chemists working outside the US are eligible for some of the ACS awards, but not the one in Pure Chemistry.
- 6.
The Priestley Medal, the top award of the ACS, is also given without respect to field; however, a large fraction of earlier awards (up to 1960 or so) went to industrial chemists and chemical engineers, blurring any easily detectable change over the crucial time period.
- 7.
A more thorough exploration of these observations could constitute a very interesting sociological study in its own right, but that would go well beyond the scope of this book.
- 8.
For additional comments on this problematic aspect see Notes on quantitative methodology.
- 9.
That isn’t entirely true: before 1957 there was no separate Division of Inorganic Chemistry, but rather a joint Division of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry, and papers presented therein need to be apportioned between them appropriately. See Notes on quantitative methodology.
- 10.
Halpern, among others, has offered that suggestion; his own experience (just an isolated example, to be sure) doesn’t necessarily support it, since as an undergraduate and graduate student at McGill University in the late 1940s he was exposed to no inorganic chemistry at all [12].
- 11.
Joseph Chatt (1914-1994) spent the earlier part of his career in industry, at Imperial Chemical Industries; while his work there in organo-transition metal chemistry was widely recognized, his impact on the field really burgeoned after he became Chair of inorganic chemistry at the University of Sussex in the early 1960s.
- 12.
Brock doesn’t mention John Anderson, who was not Australian by birth but spent the majority of his earlier career at the University of Melbourne before taking up the inorganic chair at Oxford.
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Labinger, J.A. (2013). The (Re)birth of Inorganic Chemistry. In: Up from Generality. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40120-6_3
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