Meyer, Viktor

The German chemist Viktor Meyer (1848-97) showed that the bonds of nitrogen atoms, if viewed three-dimensionally, could also explain certain types of optical isomerism. The English chemist William Jackson Pope (1870-1939) showed this was applicable to other atoms, such as those of sulfur, selenium, and tin the German-Swiss Alfred Werner (1866-1919) added cobalt, chromium, rhodium, and other metals. 

The idea of three-dimensional structure led quickly to further developments. Viktor Meyer had shown that while atom groupings ordinarily could rotate freely about a single bond attaching them to the rest of the molecule, the bulk of nearby groups of atoms sometimes prevented this rotation. This situation, called steric hindrance, can be likened to a door that ordinarily moves freely on its hinges but may be blocked by some obstruction behind it. Pope went on to show that through steric hindrance it was possible for a molecule to be asymmetric as a whole. It would then show optical activity even though none of the constituent atoms were asymmetric in themselves. 

In 1883, Viktor Meyer first detected thiophene in coke-oven benzole, where it is present in concentrations of around 1%. (Because of the close relationship between thiophene and benzene, Meyer took the name kryptophen ( hidden in benzene ) into consideration.) Recovery of thiophene from coke-oven benzole, which is possible by the reaction of thiophene with concentrated sulfuric acid to thiophenesulfonic acid, is not used industrially since the synthesis is more economical. 

H. Gutknecht first reported the reduction of an a-oximino ketone in 1879, as part of a study on the chemistry of a-isonitroso ethyl methyl ketone carried out in the laboratories of Viktor Meyer at what is now the ETH Zurich. At the time it was not known that these substances exist primarily as the oxime tautomer and not as the nitroso tautomer. 

German chemist Viktor Meyer discovers thiophene. 

A review entitled thiophenes from Viktor Meyer to Poly (thiophene) some reactions and synthesis was published in a special issue of Phosphorus, Sulfur and the related elements (13PS287). Over 80 reaction schemes are presented outlining important discoveries in the chemistry of thiophenes. Another review generalized published data on the reactions of 4-(2-R-aryl)-1,2,3-thia- and selenadiazoles (13RJOC479). Special emphasis on the use of these selenadiazole for the synthesis of 1-benzothiophenes, 1-benzosele-ophenes, and their more complex derivatives was presented. A recent review on recent advances in the use of the Wfllgerodt-Kindler reaction in thiophene syntheses appeared this year (13CSV7870). Extensive reviews on selenium and tellurium chemistry from small molecules to biomolecules and materials (B-13M001) as well as data on the synthesis, reactions, crystal structures, and spectral characteristics of benzo[b]tellurophene, dibenzo[b,d]... 

Keywords Aromaticity Bromination Diels-Alder reaction Electrophilic substitution Furan Indophenine Isatin Metallatimi Palladium(O) catalysis Pyrrole S-oxidation Sulfur lone pair Thiophene numbering Viktor Meyer TT-System... 

In the early days of chemistry, especially organic chemistry, between roughly 1820 and 1895, academic genealogy was a way for proud professors (and proud former students) to show their common roots, their similar research interests and their influence upon the world of chemistry. This was a great period for organic and physical chemistry (1-7), when the students of Jons Jakob Berzelius, Friedrich Wohler, Friedrich Strohmeyer, Robert Bunsen, Justus von Liebig, Friedrich Kekule, August von Hoffman, and later of Adolph von Baeyer, Viktor Meyer, Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, Otto Wallach and Hermann von Helmholtz were the leaders of the chemical (and physical in the case of Helmholtz) research and education world. 

The cases of Viktor Meyer and Max Bodenstein are also quite interesting. Viktor Meyer (1848-1897) did a doctoral thesis at the University of Heidelberg (1867) on a subject suggested and supervised by Adolf von Baeyer (1835-1917) who at that time was simply an assistant of Bunsen. The "official" supervisors of his thesis were the organic chemist Bunsen, the physicist Kirchhoff and the physical chemist Hermann Kopp (1817-1892). He is therefore linked to all four of them, although in terms of philosophy of research he remained a follower of von Baeyer. Max Bodenstein (1871-1942), often called the father of electrochemistry, did his doctoral work under Viktor Meyer at the University of Heidelberg (1894). For the next eleven years (1895-1906) he became the main assistant of Wilhelm Ostwald, ultimately converted to physical chemistry which he practiced when he became professor in the Universities of Hannover and Berlin. Here he is linked to both Meyer and Ostwald. 

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