Another history of a man who dedicated his life and wons the bet

(from Massachussettes Institute of Technology)

These are my life models, not actress, not football players.

Have a nice reading

 

 

Mass.--MIT professor Richard R. Schrock, one of the world's leading researchers in the area of inorganic and organometallic chemistry, has won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis."

Schrock, the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry at MIT, shares the prize with Yves Chauvin of the Institut Français du Pétrole and Robert H. Grubbs of Caltech.

Schrock was cited by the Nobel committee for being the first to produce an efficient metal-compound catalyst for methasesis--a chemical process wherein two reacting structures swap places--in 1990.

In 1981 Schrock discovered catalysts that for the first time made possible systematic control of a class of compounds used in the production of fuels, synthetic fibers, detergents, and many other products. Such control is helping the chemical and petroleum industries cut manufacturing costs by permitting more efficient manipulation of raw materials.

The catalysts Schrock discovered make it easier to modify classes of hydrocarbons called olefins and acetylenes. Olefins and acetylenes are raw materials that chemists alter to produce many products, but because two of their carbon atoms are linked together by more than one chemical bond, they are difficult to modify.

Schrock's catalysts are based on compounds of the metal tungsten, the same material used in incandescent light bulbs. Tungsten compounds have the unusual ability to establish multiple bonds between tungsten atoms and carbon atoms, which has long been known. Schrock's systematic investigation discovered the usefulness of the compounds as catalysts.

Schrock said that one of the catalysts he discovered contains a tungsten-carbon double bond. It "scrambles" the ends of olefin molecules and produces an entirely different olefin. The other catalyst contains a tungsten-carbon triple bond. It produces the same kind of scrambling reaction with acetylenic compounds. The technical name for the scrambling is metathesis reaction. The metathesis reaction of acetylenic compounds was unknown before Schrock's research.

Although scientists had known about the olefin metathesis reaction for many years, their ability to control it in a gentle way has been limited because previous catalysts couldn't be prepared in a systematic way. Schrock's catalysts can be systematically prepared, making more precise control of the metathesis reaction possible.

The American Chemical Society presented its 1996 ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry to Schrock for his efforts to develop cleaner and more efficient ways to manufacture chemicals.

Accepting the award at the society's national meeting in New Orleans, Schrock said, "The real impact here is ultimately in making pharmaceuticals, polymers and other products where exquisite control is necessary, and now it's possible."

Schrock achieves that exquisite control, according to the citation, with catalysts structured to lock onto and join molecules that normally do not react. He focuses on those catalysts that contain a metal to which the molecules bind and react with each other.

"This will reduce the amount of waste and make the environment safer and

cleaner in the long run," he said. "For example, the idea is to conduct a reaction in water instead of [the industrial solvent] toluene..."

Schrock's particular contribution, the society said, "was to develop a method and a catalyst to break open compounds whose atoms are arranged in a ring. Once opened up into chains, these molecules can be strung together in specific ways to form polymers for everything from garbage cans to athletic clothing. Or he can close up a chain into a ring, for example, from which medicinal chemists can design pharmaceuticals."

Schrock obtained the B.A. degree in 1967 from the University of California at Riverside and the Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971. He spent a year as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge University followed by three years at the Central Research and Development Department of E.I. duPont de Nemours and Co. before joining the MIT faculty in 1975. He became a full professor in 1980 and was named the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry in 1989.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was associate editor of Organometallics for eight years, and has published more than 400 research papers.

In addition to the 1996 ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry, he has received the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry (1985), the Harrison Howe Award of the Rochester ACS section (1990), an Alexander von Humboldt Award (1995), the Bailar Medal from the University of Illinois (1998), an ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2001, and the Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Medal in 2002.

Schrock was born January 4, 1945, in Berne, Indiana. He and his wife Nancy F. Carlson have two children.