Joseph Achille Le Bel

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Joseph Achille Le Bel (1847–1930), was a French chemist, who was best known for his work in stereochemistry. He was born on January 21, 1847 in Pechelbronn and educated at the École Polytechnique in Paris. In 1874 he announced his theory outlining the relationship between molecular structure and optical activity, which laid the foundation of the science of Stereochemistry, dealing with the spatial arrangement of atoms in molecules. This hypothesis was put forward in the same year by the Dutch physical chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff. Le Bel wrote Cosmologie Rationelle (Rational Cosmology) in 1929. He died on August 6, 1930, in Paris.