Seeman Jeffrey I
Department of Chemistry, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, 23173, USA.
Chem Rec. 2022 May;22(5):e202200052. doi: 10.1002/tcr.202200052.
It is a reasonable question to ask, why, as of 1965 when the five Woodward-Hoffmann communication appeared, did no other physical chemist or chemical physicist or theoretical chemist discover the orbital symmetry rules for all pericyclic reactions? Two theoretical chemists - Luitzen Oosterhoff (in 1961) and Kenichi Fukui (in 1964) had discovered portions of the orbital symmetry rules; their stories appear in the papers immediately preceding this paper which is Paper 5 in a 27-paper series on the history of Woodward-Hoffmann rules. Concise yet telling stories of 19 other chemists who could have, might have, perhaps even should have discovered the Woodward-Hoffmann rules are presented with explanations as to why they did not do so. Social, political, and scientific explanations will summarize the analyses.
为什么在1965年五篇伍德沃德-霍夫曼通讯发表时，没有其他物理化学家、化学物理学家或理论化学家发现所有周环反应的轨道对称规则呢？两位理论化学家——路易岑·奥斯特霍夫（1961年）和福井谦一（1964年）已经发现了轨道对称规则的部分内容；他们的故事出现在本文之前紧接着的论文中，本文是关于伍德沃德-霍夫曼规则历史的27篇系列论文中的第5篇。文中还简要讲述了另外19位本可以、可能甚至应该发现伍德沃德-霍夫曼规则的化学家的故事，并解释了他们没有这样做的原因。社会、政治和科学方面的解释将总结这些分析。
