Roald Hoffmann

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Roald Hoffmann (born July 18, 1937 as Roald Safran - Hoffmann is the surname of his stepfather) is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He currently teaches at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

1 Life and work
2 Awards
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Life and work

Hoffmann was born in Złoczów, Poland (now Ukraine) to a Jewish family and named in honor of the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen. He and his mother were the only members of his family to survive the Holocaust, an experience which strongly influenced his beliefs and work^[1] They immigrated to the United States of America in 1949, where he graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School (winning a Westinghouse science scholarship). He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College) in 1958, and his Master of Arts degree in 1960 and his Doctor of Philosophy degree (working under the subsequent 1976 chemistry Nobel Prize winner William N. Lipscomb, Jr.) in 1962, both from Harvard University.

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.

Hoffmann is also a writer of poetry published in two collections, "The Metamict State" (1987, ISBN 0-8130-0869-7) and "Gaps and Verges" (1990, ISBN 0-8130-0943-X), and of books explaining chemistry to the general public. Also, he wrote a play called "O2 Oxygen" about the discovery of oxygen, but also about what it means to be a scientist and the importance of process of discovery in science.

In 1981, Hoffmann received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Kenichi Fukui. E.J. Corey has recently said he was the one who gave Woodward the idea of applying symmetry groups to problems and therefore, at least in part, Corey should have also received the Nobel Prize Hoffmann was awarded. Hoffmann has consistently reported that Woodward had never said anything of this nature. He was awarded the Priestley Medal in 1990.

He 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 [1].

Hoffmann stars in the World of Chemistry video series with Don Showalter.

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