Rolf Huisgen, Eminent Chemist and Polymath (1920–2020): In His Own Words and In His Publication Metrics
As a compliment to several other publications that present and honor Rolf Huisgen's research achievements, the first part of this paper reveals the human side of this eminent chemist. From excerpts from many of his personal and professional writings, Huisgen's personality and philosophies...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Angewandte Chemie International Edition Vol. 59; no. 30; pp. 12250 - 12266 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Weinheim
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
20-07-2020
|
| Edition: | International ed. in English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | As a compliment to several other publications that present and honor Rolf Huisgen's research achievements, the first part of this paper reveals the human side of this eminent chemist. From excerpts from many of his personal and professional writings, Huisgen's personality and philosophies of life are revealed. Also revealed is Huisgen functioning as a historian of chemistry. The second part of this paper examines the scientometrics of Huisgen's publication history. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Huisgen's career experienced a major transition in terms of publication metrics and the influence these papers had on the organic chemistry community. This was the result of his research into 1,3‐dipolar cycloadditions. Citations to his scientific contributions are well spread over many of his papers, demonstrating his constant work and the building up of a research topic, which continued after his official retirement in 1988. In fact, 17 % of his more than 600 publications appeared after 1988. The majority of Huisgen's papers were co‐authored with his many graduate and postdoctoral students. Consistent with the trend of that era, Huisgen was the sole author of most of his Review articles, and not just those of his many plenary lectures, and it is those Review articles that proved to be his most cited publications. This demonstrates the power and influence of Review articles—secondary sources, in the vocabulary of historians and sociologists of science. In those Review articles, Huisgen principally described the state of the art of 1,3‐dipolar cycloadditions—his golden offspring.
“Hans Meerwein once told me facetiously that it requires intuition to stop an investigation at the right stage. The result of one further experiment can deliver the deathblow to a beautiful hypothesis. The tendency to generalize, to simplify, and to jump to conclusions is inherent to the human mind. Frequently, an investigation has to pass a stage of maximum complexity before reaching the silver‐lining rewards for sustained effort.” – Rolf Huisgen, 1994 |
|---|---|
| Bibliography: | This paper is a sequel to seven previously published papers by one of the authors (J.I.S.) in the “Words” series Imitating the Grand Style of R. B. Woodward R. B. Woodward's Letters, Reveals, Elegant and Commanding Gilbert Stork: In His Own Words and in the Musings of His Friends J. D. Roberts: In His Own Words and Those of His Friends R. B. Woodward: Elegant and Commanding In memory of Rolf Huisgen and his wife Gertrud (Trudl) Huisgen (1918–2005). and Carl Djerassi: In His Own Words , . Woodward's Pure and Applied Chemistry Words ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 ObjectType-Review-1 |
| ISSN: | 1433-7851 1521-3773 |
| DOI: | 10.1002/anie.202003034 |