Lafont Olivier
Faculté de médecine et de pharmacie, 22 boulevard Gambetta, 76803 Rouen cedex 1.
Rev Hist Pharm (Paris). 2007 Jan;54(352):475-8.
In 1900, the term as used for the first time by Moses Gomberg, a chemist working in Michigan University. He discovered the triphenylmethyl radical when he treated triphenylmethyl chloride by metals (Ag, Zn). The term "free radicals" has been used for 93 years to distinguish between radicals as distinct chemical species and the term radical used to describe a substitutive group. In 1993, JUPAC decided to call , "radicals" chemical species bearing an unpaired electron and "groups" the substituting groups.
1900年，密歇根大学的化学家摩西·冈伯格首次使用了这个术语。他在用金属（银、锌）处理三苯甲基氯时发现了三苯甲基自由基。“自由基”这个术语已经使用了93年，用于区分作为不同化学物种的自由基和用于描述取代基的“基团”这个术语。1993年，国际纯粹与应用化学联合会决定将带有未成对电子的化学物种称为“自由基”，将取代基团称为“基团”。
