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Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry
2011
First Published
4.17
Average Rating
395
Number of Pages
Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann's contributions to chemistry are well known. Less well known, however, is that over a career that spans nearly fifty years, Hoffmann has thought and written extensively about a wide variety of other topics, such as chemistry's relationship to philosophy, literature, and the arts, including the nature of chemical reasoning, the role of symbolism and writing in science, and the relationship between art and craft and science. In Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry, Jeffrey Kovac and Michael Weisberg bring together twenty-eight of Hoffmann's most important essays. Gathered here are Hoffmann's most philosophically significant and interesting essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. In essays such as "Why Buy That Theory," "Nearly Circular Reasoning," "How Should Chemists Think," "The Metaphor, Unchained," "Art in Science," and "Molecular Beauty," we find the mature reflections of one of America's leading scientists. Organized under the general headings of Chemical Reasoning and Explanation, Writing and Communicating, Art and Science, Education, and Ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.
Avg Rating
4.17
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29
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Author

Roald Hoffmann
Roald Hoffmann
Author · 6 books

Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937) is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. Hoffmann graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School, where he won a Westinghouse science scholarship. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College) in 1958. He earned his Master of Arts degree in 1960 from Harvard University. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University while working under direction of subsequent 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner William Lipscomb. Under Lipscomb's direction the Extended Hückel method was developed by Lawrence Lohr and by Roald Hoffmann. This method was later extended by Hoffmann. He went to Cornell in 1965 and has remained there, becoming professor emeritus. Hoffmann has investigated both organic and inorganic substances, developing computational tools and methods such as the extended Hückel method, which he proposed in 1963. He also developed, with Robert Burns Woodward, rules for elucidating reaction mechanisms (the Woodward–Hoffmann rules). He also introduced the isolobal principle. In 1981, Hoffmann received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Kenichi Fukui "for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions". Other awards: Priestley Medal (1990) Arthur C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry Organic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1969 Inorganic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1982 Pimentel Award in Chemical Education (1996) Award in Pure Chemistry Monsanto Award Literaturpreis of the Verband der Chemischen Industrie for his textbook The Same and Not The Same (1997) National Medal of Science National Academy of Sciences American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow American Philosophical Society Fellow Kolos Medal Foreign Member, Royal Society Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Harvard Centennial Medalist James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry Hoffmann is member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In August 2007, the American Chemical Society held a symposium at its biannual national meeting to honor Hoffmann's 70th birthday. He also has served as a consultant with Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical corporation.

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