Nobel Prize Lipscomb

C = 12 internationally adopted as the unified atomic weight standard by both chemi.sts and physicists. 6-coordinate carbon established in various carboranes by W. N. Lipscomb and others. (Nobel Prize 1976 for structure and bonding of boranes). 

LIPSCOMB. WILLIAM N. l 1919—). An American chemist who won the Nobel prize fur chemistry in 1976 for his studies on ihe structure and bonding mechanisms of borancs. Much ol Hie research concerned structure and function of enzymes and natural products in organic and theoretical chemistry. He studied at (he Universities of Kentucky. California, and Minnesota. 

W. N. Lipscomb, Accounts of Chemical Research 3, 81 (1970) E. T. Kaiser and B. L. Kaiser, ibid. 5, 219 (1972). Lipscomb received the 1976 Nobel Prize in chemistry for structural work on boranes. 

The theoretical description of similar structures in terms of a three-centre bonding conception (see below) was first suggested in 1943-47 by H. C. Longuet-Higgins and R. S. Mulliken. A great contribution to the investigation of structure and properties of boranes was provided by the American chemist W. N. Lipscomb who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts in 1976. 

Bill Lipscomb, later, Professor of Chemistry at Harvard and Nobel Prize winner. 

Prol cs.sor Lipscomb s work has been of such value that he received the 1976 Nobel Prize in chemistry (see Science 1977, 196, 1047-1055 for his Nobel Laureate address). It has been aptly said. "Boron hydrides arc the children of this century, yet the discovery of polyhedral borancs, carboranes, and mctalluboruncs and the subsequent elaboration of chemistry, structure, and theory, and the incredibly rapid one con.sidering the small number of investigators, arc among the major developments in inorganic chemistry" [Boron Hydride Chemistry Muetterties, E. L., Ed. Academic New York, 1975). 

Several other chemists who have won the Nobel Prize did not receive it for their computational chemistry per se, but nevertheless were extremely influential in computational chemistry. Among these scientists is Professor William N. Lipscomb, Jr., of Harvard University. He received the 1976 Prize for his work on the bonding of boron hydrides,but it was also in his laboratory where the extended Hiickel method first evolved, as well as other original molecular orbital treatments. ... 

The physicist was Nobel Prize winner William Lipscomb. 

Professor William N. Lipscomb received the Nobel Prize in 1976. He is also an official Kentucky Colonel. Indeed, most of us who have worked with him know him as the Colonel. 

It will be noticed that the Nobel prizes in quantum chemistry have gone to Pauling, Mulliken, Hoffmann, Fukui, and Lipscomb. All of these people are noted for the models of the chemical bond that they have developed and used to explain important chemical phenomena. Even in the computer age, none of them obtained their fame by high level ab initio calculations. Rather, they focused on incorrect, but useful, empirical wavefunctions. The insights that they obtained were not found on any computer printout. 

One of the most important and exciting events in the chemistry of the twentieth century was a discovery of polyhedral boron hydrides at the end of 1950s. It was shown that boron atoms in boron hydrides are linked by unusual three-centered two-electron bonds or multicentered bonds. The establishment of three-centered two-electron bonds made a true revolution in the theory of chemical bonding and William Lipscomb was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976 for his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding [1]. 

December 9, 1919-April 14, 2011), Emeritus Professor at Harvard University and the winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Professor Lipscomb, one of the founders of theoretical and structural polyhedral boron chemistry, had dedicated much of his career to promoting boron science, which is the subject of this book. Much of the progress in these endeavors rests on Professor Lipscomb s original work on bonding in boranes. His dedication to our global society is hereby recognized and saluted. We miss him. 

The definitive method for determining static structures is X-ray diffraction. Indeed, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Professor William N. Lipscomb for his work in determining structures of the boron hydrides by diffraction methods. However, it must be remembered that packing forces and solvation effects may change the preferred structure between solid state and solution. Another technique, which combines theory and experiment, has established a reliability on a par with X-ray diffraction for confirming structures. It is called the ab /n/n o/IGLO/NMR method (see NMR Chemical Shift Computation Structural Applications for an extensive discussion of calculated NMR chemical shifts) and combines calculated chemical shifts for a number of possible structures with the experimentally measured chemical shifts in solution. 

Lipscomb authored two books, both published by W.A. Benjamin Inc. (New York). The first (1963) was entitled Boron Hydrides. The second (1969), co-authored with G. Eaton, was on NMR Studies of Boron Hydrides and Related Compounds. He published over 650 scientific papers between 1942 and 2009. His citation for the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1976, for his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding , echoes that of his mentor Linus Pauling in 1954, for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances . It is for his work on the structure of boron hydrides that Lipscomb is most widely known. 

William Lipscomb will be remembered as a scientist, an educator (three of his students received the Nobel Prize), and an inspiration to all. He is survived by his wife, Jean Evans, and three children - including two from an earlier marriage, as well as by three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. 

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