Vol. 74 No. 11 November 1997 • Journal of Chemical Education 1277

Chemical Education Today

edited byEdward J. WalshAllegheny College

Meadville, PA 16335

book & media reviews

Profiles, Pathways, and Dreams: Autobiographies ofEminent Chemists. Vol. 19, A Lifetime of Synergy withTheory and Experiment

Andrew Streitwieser. Jeffrey I. Seeman, series editor.American Chemistry Society: Washington, DC, 1996. xxvii+ 310 pp. Illustrations. 15.7 × 23.3 cm. ISBN 0-8412-1836-6. $34.95.

This latest volume is the 19th in Jeff Seeman’s pro-jected 22-volume series of autobiographies of 20th-centuryorganic chemists that began publication in 1990 (Kauffman,G. B. J. Chem. Educ. 1991, 68, A21). As one of the youngestcontributors to the series, Streitwieser was scheduled to beone of the last to be published (Three of the biographees—Arthur J. Birch, Melvin Calvin, and Herman Mark—havedied since the start of the series’ publication), and he ac-knowledges that he has benefited from the feedback to ear-lier volumes to make additions to his own. For example,Carl Djerassi's inclusion of his daughter's suicide in his vol-ume, Steroids Made It Possible (Kauffman, G. B. Am. Sci.1992, 80, 190), prompted Streitwieser to include personaldetails of his first wife's suicide (she jumped from the Oak-land Bay Bridge after taking the first dose of a new antide-pressant drug) and its effect on his life and that of his chil-dren, as well as his chemistry.

Streitwieser chose his book’s title because in his chemi-cal life “theory and experiment have interacted so that bothwere enhanced.” With great candor and flashes of humor,he describes his youth, education, marriages and family life,travels, honors and awards, hobbies, his research and thatof his colleagues, controversies, and consulting, editorial,and writing activities. He also includes personal reminis-cences, anecdotes, and opinions of education, grantsman-ship, scientific ethics, creativity, excessive governmentalregulations, and future trends in chemistry. His list of 442references includes some as recent as 1996. An alphabeti-cal appendix of brief biographical information about 63 col-leagues and associates (from Roger Adams to Robert W.Zwanzig) and a chemical genealogy, tracing Streitwieser’sroots to Adriaan van den Spieghel (1578–1625), are uniqueto this volume in the “Profiles” series.

Born on June 23, 1927, in Buffalo, New York, Streit-wieser shared many of the educational experiences of ourgeneration of chemists—receiving a chemistry set at anearly age and setting up a home laboratory, training at anacademically elite high school, and winning the Westing-house Science Talent Search. Together with childhoodchums Lester Friedman and Edward M. Kosower (nowchemistry professors at Case–Western Reserve and Tel AvivUniversities, respectively), he founded a three-way partner-ship, “Organic Specialties”, complete with letterhead statio-

nery that enabled the partners to obtain free samples andreceive orders for syntheses from chemical companies.While he was still attending Stuyvesant High School, hisfirst publication, “Chlorination of Fluorene with SulfurylChloride”, appeared in the Journal of the American Chemi-cal Society.

Streitwieser completed his undergraduate education atColumbia College in three and a half years (1945–1948),which included a year and a half in the U.S. Army. Aided bythe G.I. Bill, he remained at Columbia, working on a sol-volysis problem under William von Eggers Doering andearning his M.A. (1950) and Ph.D. (1952) degrees. Afterworking as an Atomic Energy Commission postdoctoral fel-low with John D. Roberts at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (1951–1952), he joined the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley, faculty, rising through the ranks and offi-cially retiring in 1992. (In his words, “I became ‘emeritus;’ Iam not really retired.”)

During his long and productive career as one of today’smost prominent physical organic chemists, Streitwiesermade many contributions, which he describes lucidly withextensive use of structural formulas, equations, and figures.More than 200 undergraduates, graduate students,postdocs, and visiting professors (many of whom are shownin the 99 formal and informal photographs in the book) haveworked with him through four decades. Their problems haveencompassed reaction mechanisms; solvolytic displacementreactions; stereochemistry of the primary carbon atom;secondary deuterium isotope effects; molecular orbitaltheory (the subject of his first book [1961], which helped toeducate a new generation of organic chemists in the use ofMO concepts); carbon acidity (kinetic and equilibrium acidi-ties in cyclohexylamine, Brönsted correlations, organo-fluorine carbanions, and carbanions in tetrahydrofuran);theoretical chemistry (computers and MO theory, ab initioquantum organic chemistry, electron density functions,carboxylate resonance, and transition states and ion-pairreactions); f-orbital organometallics (uranocene—aboutwhose discovery Robert B. Woodward exclaimed, “I wish Ihad thought of that”, cerocene, organolanthanides, andstructures and hydrolysis); heterocycle polycations; andorganic plasma chemistry.

Streitwieser’s entertaining, informative, and modestlypriced volume will be of interest to both present and futuregenerations of students and instructors of chemistry coursesand the history of science as well as to all persons concernedwith the human aspects of science.

George B. Kauffman and Laurie M. KauffmanCalifornia State UniversityFresno, CA