Roald Hoffmann

Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937)^[2] is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.^[3][4][5][6]

Early life

Escape from the Holocaust

Roald Hoffmann (2015)

Hoffmann was born in Złoczów, Poland (now Ukraine), to a Jewish family, and was named in honor of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. His parents were Clara (Rosen), a teacher, and Hillel Safran, a civil engineer.^[7] After Germany invaded Poland and occupied the town, his family was placed in a labor camp where his father, who was familiar with much of the local infrastructure, was a valued prisoner. As the situation grew more dangerous, with prisoners being transferred to liquidation camps, the family bribed guards to allow an escape and arranged with a Ukrainian neighbor named Mykola Dyuk for Hoffmann, his mother, two uncles and an aunt to hide in the attic and a storeroom of the local schoolhouse, where they remained for eighteen months, from January 1943 to June 1944, while Hoffmann was aged 5 to 7.^[8]

His father remained at the labor camp, but was able to occasionally visit, until he was tortured and killed by the Germans for his involvement in a plot to arm the camp prisoners. When she received the news, his mother attempted to contain her sorrow by writing down her feelings in a notebook her husband had been using to take notes on a relativity textbook he had been reading. While in hiding his mother kept Hoffmann entertained by teaching him to read and having him memorize geography from textbooks stored in the attic, then quizzing him on it. He referred to the experience as having been enveloped in a cocoon of love.^[9]

Most of the rest of the family perished in the Holocaust, though one grandmother and a few others survived.^[10] They migrated to the United States on the troop carrier Ernie Pyle in 1949.^[11]

Hoffmann married Eva Börjesson in 1960. They have two children, Hillel Jan and Ingrid Helena.^[12] Hoffmann visited Zolochiv with his adult son (by then a parent of a five-year-old) in 2006 and found that the attic where he had hidden was still intact, but the storeroom had been incorporated, ironically enough, into a chemistry classroom. In 2009, a monument to Holocaust victims was built in Zolochiv on Hoffmann's initiative.^[13] He is an atheist.^[14]

Education and academic credentials

Hoffmann graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School,^[15][16] 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^{[17][18][19][20][21]} under joint supervision of Martin Gouterman and subsequent 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner William N. Lipscomb, Jr. Hoffman worked on the molecular orbital theory of polyhedral molecules.^[15] Under Lipscomb's direction the Extended Hückel method was developed by Lawrence Lohr and by Roald Hoffmann.^[18][22] This method was later extended by Hoffmann.^[23] He went to Cornell in 1965 and has remained there, becoming professor emeritus.

Scientific research

External video

“Chemistry's Essential Tension”, Roald Hoffman, Dartmouth College

“Roald Hoffmann Shares Discovery Through Chemistry”, Roald Hoffman, National Science Foundation

Hoffmann is interested in the electronic structure of stable and unstable molecules, and in the study of transition states in reactions.^{[17][18][19][20][21][23][22]} He has investigated the structure and reactivity of both organic and inorganic molecules, and examined problems in organo-metallic and solid-state chemistry.^[11] Hoffman has developed semiempirical and nonempirical computational tools and methods such as the extended Hückel method for determining molecular orbitals, which he proposed in 1963.^[12]

With Robert Burns Woodward he developed rules for elucidating reaction mechanisms (the Woodward–Hoffmann rules). They realized that chemical transformations could be approximately predicted from subtle symmetries and asymmetries in the electron "orbitals" of complex molecules.^[24] Their rules predict differing outcomes, such as the types of products that will be formed when two compounds are activated by heat compared with those produced under activation by light.^[25] For this work Hoffmann received the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry, sharing it with Japanese chemist Kenichi Fukui,^[26] who had independently resolved similar issues. (Woodward was not included in the prize, which is given only to living persons.)^[27] In his Nobel Lecture, Hoffmann introduced the isolobal analogy for predicting the bonding properties of organometallic compounds.^[28]

Some of Hoffman's most recent work, with Neil Ashcroft and Vanessa Labet, examines bonding in matter under extreme high pressure.^[11]

"What gives me the greatest joy in this work? That as we tease apart what goes on in hydrogen under pressures such as those that one finds at the center of the earth, two explanations subtly contend with each other... [physical and chemical] ... Hydrogen under extreme pressure is doing just what an inorganic molecule at 1 atmosphere does!"^[11]

Artistic interests

The World Of Chemistry with Roald Hoffmann

Hoffmann is the co-host of the Annenberg/CPB educational series, The World of Chemistry, with Don Showalter.

Entertaining Science

Since the spring of 2001, Hoffmann has been the host of the monthly series Entertaining Science at New York City's Cornelia Street Cafe,^[29] which explores the juncture between the arts and science.

Non-fiction

He has published books on the connections between art and science: Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry and Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science.^[30]

Poetry

Hoffmann is also a writer of poetry.^[31] His collections include The Metamict State (1987, ISBN 0-8130-0869-7),^[32] Gaps and Verges (1990, ISBN 0-8130-0943-X),^[24] and Chemistry Imagined, co-produced with artist Vivian Torrence.^[24][33]

Plays

He co-authored with Carl Djerassi the play Oxygen, about the discovery of oxygen and the experience of being a scientist. Hoffman's play, "Should’ve" (2006) about ethics in science in art, has been produced in workshops; as has a play based on his experiences in the holocaust, "We Have Something That Belongs to You" (2009),^[30]later published in book form by Dos Madres Press ^[34]

Music

Hoffmann and Brian Alan produced an English cover of Wei Wei's song "Dedication of Love", part of an international music project raising funds to help the victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.^[35]

Honors and awards

Roald Hoffmann with the AIC Gold Medal

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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".^[27][36]

Other awards

Hoffmann has won many other awards,^[37] and is the recipient of more than 25 honorary degrees.^[38]

• ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, 1969^[39]
• Award of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, 1970, "pour sa methode de calcul des fonctions d'onde moleculaires et pour ses etudes theoriques des reactions chimiques"^[40]
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1971^[41]
• Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected 1972^[42]
• Arthur C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry, 1973 (with Robert B. Woodward)^[43]
• Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1981^[27]
• Inorganic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1982 (sponsored by Monsanto)^[44]
• National Medal of Science, 1983^[45][46]
• Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, elected 1984^[37]
• Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1984^[1][47]
• Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, elected 1985^[37][48]
• Priestley Medal, 1990^[33]
• Harvard Centennial Medalist, 1994^[49]
• Pimentel Award in Chemical Education, 1996^[50]
• E.A. Wood Science Writing Award, 1997^[51]
• Literaturpreis of the Verband der Chemischen Industrie for his textbook The Same and Not The Same, 1997^[52]
• Kolos Medal, 1998^[53]
• American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal, 2006^[54]
• James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry, 2009^[55]
• Fellow of the American Chemical Society, 2009^[56]

Hoffmann is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science ^[57] and the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.^[58]

In August 2007, the American Chemical Society held a symposium at its biannual national meeting to honor Hoffmann's 70th birthday.^[59]

References

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1901–1925	1901 Jacobus van 't Hoff 1902 Emil Fischer 1903 Svante Arrhenius 1904 William Ramsay 1905 Adolf von Baeyer 1906 Henri Moissan 1907 Eduard Buchner 1908 Ernest Rutherford 1909 Wilhelm Ostwald 1910 Otto Wallach 1911 Marie Curie 1912 Victor Grignard / Paul Sabatier 1913 Alfred Werner 1914 Theodore Richards 1915 Richard Willstätter 1916 1917 1918 Fritz Haber 1919 1920 Walther Nernst 1921 Frederick Soddy 1922 Francis Aston 1923 Fritz Pregl 1924 1925 Richard Zsigmondy
1926–1950	1926 Theodor Svedberg 1927 Heinrich Wieland 1928 Adolf Windaus 1929 Arthur Harden / Hans von Euler-Chelpin 1930 Hans Fischer 1931 Carl Bosch / Friedrich Bergius 1932 Irving Langmuir 1933 1934 Harold Urey 1935 Frédéric Joliot-Curie / Irène Joliot-Curie 1936 Peter Debye 1937 Norman Haworth / Paul Karrer 1938 Richard Kuhn 1939 Adolf Butenandt / Leopold Ružička 1940 1941 1942 1943 George de Hevesy 1944 Otto Hahn 1945 Artturi Virtanen 1946 James B. Sumner / John Northrop / Wendell Meredith Stanley 1947 Robert Robinson 1948 Arne Tiselius 1949 William Giauque 1950 Otto Diels / Kurt Alder
1951–1975	1951 Edwin McMillan / Glenn T. Seaborg 1952 Archer Martin / Richard Synge 1953 Hermann Staudinger 1954 Linus Pauling 1955 Vincent du Vigneaud 1956 Cyril Hinshelwood / Nikolay Semyonov 1957 Alexander Todd 1958 Frederick Sanger 1959 Jaroslav Heyrovský 1960 Willard Libby 1961 Melvin Calvin 1962 Max Perutz / John Kendrew 1963 Karl Ziegler / Giulio Natta 1964 Dorothy Hodgkin 1965 Robert Woodward 1966 Robert S. Mulliken 1967 Manfred Eigen / Ronald Norrish / George Porter 1968 Lars Onsager 1969 Derek Barton / Odd Hassel 1970 Luis Federico Leloir 1971 Gerhard Herzberg 1972 Christian B. Anfinsen / Stanford Moore / William Stein 1973 Ernst Otto Fischer / Geoffrey Wilkinson 1974 Paul Flory 1975 John Cornforth / Vladimir Prelog
1976–2000	1976 William Lipscomb 1977 Ilya Prigogine 1978 Peter D. Mitchell 1979 Herbert C. Brown / Georg Wittig 1980 Paul Berg / Walter Gilbert / Frederick Sanger 1981 Kenichi Fukui / Roald Hoffmann 1982 Aaron Klug 1983 Henry Taube 1984 Robert Merrifield 1985 Herbert A. Hauptman / Jerome Karle 1986 Dudley R. Herschbach / Yuan T. Lee / John Polanyi 1987 Donald J. Cram / Jean-Marie Lehn / Charles J. Pedersen 1988 Johann Deisenhofer / Robert Huber / Hartmut Michel 1989 Sidney Altman / Thomas Cech 1990 Elias Corey 1991 Richard R. Ernst 1992 Rudolph A. Marcus 1993 Kary Mullis / Michael Smith 1994 George Olah 1995 Paul J. Crutzen / Mario J. Molina / Frank Rowland 1996 Robert Curl / Harold Kroto / Richard Smalley 1997 Paul D. Boyer / John E. Walker / Jens Christian Skou 1998 Walter Kohn / John Pople 1999 Ahmed Zewail 2000 Alan J. Heeger / Alan MacDiarmid / Hideki Shirakawa
2001–present	2001 William Knowles / Ryoji Noyori / K. Barry Sharpless 2002 John B. Fenn / Koichi Tanaka / Kurt Wüthrich 2003 Peter Agre / Roderick MacKinnon 2004 Aaron Ciechanover / Avram Hershko / Irwin Rose 2005 Robert H. Grubbs / Richard R. Schrock / Yves Chauvin 2006 Roger D. Kornberg 2007 Gerhard Ertl 2008 Osamu Shimomura / Martin Chalfie / Roger Y. Tsien 2009 Venkatraman Ramakrishnan / Thomas A. Steitz / Ada E. Yonath 2010 Richard F. Heck / Akira Suzuki / Ei-ichi Negishi 2011 Dan Shechtman 2012 Robert Lefkowitz / Brian Kobilka 2013 Martin Karplus / Michael Levitt / Arieh Warshel 2014 Eric Betzig / Stefan Hell / William E. Moerner 2015 Tomas Lindahl / Paul L. Modrich / Aziz Sancar 2016 Jean-Pierre Sauvage / Fraser Stoddart / Ben Feringa