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Polyhedron prize for creativity in inorganic chemistry 1995
PolyhedronVol. 14, No. 23 24, pp. i~xi, 1995
~ Pergamon
Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 0277-5387/95 $9.50+0.00
ANNOUNCEMENT POLYHEDRON PRIZE FOR CREATIVITY IN INORGANIC CHEMISTRY 1995 It is with great pleasure that the selection committee for the Polyhedron Prize announce that the Prize for 1995 has been awarded to F. Albert Cotton of Texas A&M University, "for his seminal contributions to the chemistry of the transition metals wherein they form metal-metal bonds, of orders up to the previously unprecedented order of four, and a great variety of metal atom cluster compounds, previously unrecognized to play an essential role in their chemistry."
F. A. Cotton was born in 1930 in Philadelphia, where he attended public schools, Drexel University and Temple University (A.B., 1951). He received his Ph.D from Harvard University in 1955 for work done under the supervision of Nobel laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson and immediately took up an Instructorship at MIT. In 1961, at age 31, he attained the rank of full Professor, the youngest person to achieve that rank at MIT up to that time. In 1972 he came to Texas A&M University as Robert A. Welch Professor and he presently holds the positions of Doherty-Welch Distinguished Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Structure and Bonding. Professor Cotton is known both for his research and as the author of some of the most important chemistry textbooks of our time. His research has dealt with nearly every important phase of inorganic chemistry, especially the chemistry of the metallic elements, as well as with the structural chemistry of enzymes. His investigations have resulted in more than 1250 research publications, mostly in journals published by the American Chemical Society. He has made major contributions to the area of metal carbonyl compounds and organometallic compounds and his work on the structure of staphylococcal nuclease was one of the first high resolution enzyme structure determinations. This structure today provides the basis for extensive studies of enzyme catalysis employing site-specific mutagenesis. His greatest contributions, however, are in the field of metal-metal bonding, where, beginning in 1962, he discovered the existence of double, triple and quadruple ix
Announcement metal-metal bonds, as well as a host of compounds containing metal atom clusters with single bonds. In the course of his work on compounds with multiple metal-metal bonds, he has expanded the field from his original recognition that a quadruple bond (the first one ever recognized, although Linus Pauling was prescient enough to imply, in 1960, that such a bond might reasonably be expected) exists in Re2CI~- to include nearly the entire group of d-block transition elements. What is particularly impressive about this work is the way it has included not only the original preparations of nearly every one of the new M-M multiple bonds, and extensive studies of their chemical properties, but also extensive studies of their physical properties, via hundreds of crystal structures, detailed spectroscopic studies (including oriented single-crystal polarized spectra at 5° K), and both simple and sophisticated theoretical work. This body of work, along with very extensive studies of metal cluster compounds, has entirely transformed our understanding of how the chemistry of about half the elements in the periodic table really works. His books include "Advanced Inorganic Chemistry", editions 1-5, co-authored with Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson. This book, of which more than a half million copies, in fourteen foreign language translations as well as English, have been printed, has been the leading textbook in its field for a quarter of a century. Cotton's textbook "Chemical Applications of Group Theory" is world famous (six translations) as the book from which virtually all chemists have learned the mathematics for dealing with molecular symmetry. In addition, he has written a very successful high school text, "Chemistry, An Investigative Approach", a smaller inorganic text (again with G. Wilkinson and available in ten translations), and several monographs, of which "Multiple Bonds between Metal Atoms" co-authored with R. A. Walton is most notable. Professor Cotton has received many forms of recognition for his work. He was elected to the U. S. National Academy of Sciences at the age of 37, and has been Chairman of the Class of Physical Sciences (1985-1988) and a member of the Council (1992-1994). He is also an honorary or foreign member of the G6ttingen Academy, the Royal Danish Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academia Europaea, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the French Academy of Science, the Societa Chimica Italiana and the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as being a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and an honorary life member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has received the Baekeland, Kirkwood, Gibbs, Nichols, Richards, Pauling and Cotton gold medals from ACS sections. He is, in fact, the only American chemist ever to receive all of these seven gold medals. He was the first recipient of the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry and has also received the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry (making him the first person to receive both ACS inorganic awards). In 1983 he received both the National Medal of Science and the Award in Physical and Mathematical Sciences from the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1990 he received the King Faisal International Prize in Science and the Award in Chemical Sciences of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, and in 1994 he was the recipient of the Paracelsus Medal of the Swiss Chemical Society and the Robert A. Welch Foundation prize. He holds nineteen honorary doctorates. Professor Cotton has served on many editorial boards, including those of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Inorganic Chemistry and Organometallics. He has been Chairman of the Inorganic Division of the ACS and was an ACS Councillor for five years. During 1985-86 he served as the Alexander Todd Professor at Cambridge University. He has served on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of Argonne National Laboratory and the National Research Laboratory Commission of Texas, and is currently a member of the National Science Board. He has also served the National Academy of Sciences in numerous positions, including membership on the Council, the governing board of the NRC and COSEPUP.
Announcement The Polyhedron Prize is awarded biennially and consists of a gold medal, a citation and U.S. $10,000. Previous prize winners are : 1989 Professor Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson "for the outstanding contributions made to organometallic chemistry and the new horizons opened in this field". 1991 Professor Richard H. Holm "for his pioneering contributions to transition metal compounds with sulphur, thiolato and related ligands, in particular those cluster compounds of iron and molybdenum that have relevance to, and provide models for, species in biological systems such as ferredoxins, and for his continuing work in these areas and others such as oxygen and imido group transfer reactions". 1993 Professor M. Frederick Hawthorne "for his pioneering studies on boron hydrides, carborane complexes, and their uses in catalysis and biology radioimaging".
xi
~ Pergamon
Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 0277-5387/95 $9.50+0.00
ANNOUNCEMENT POLYHEDRON PRIZE FOR CREATIVITY IN INORGANIC CHEMISTRY 1995 It is with great pleasure that the selection committee for the Polyhedron Prize announce that the Prize for 1995 has been awarded to F. Albert Cotton of Texas A&M University, "for his seminal contributions to the chemistry of the transition metals wherein they form metal-metal bonds, of orders up to the previously unprecedented order of four, and a great variety of metal atom cluster compounds, previously unrecognized to play an essential role in their chemistry."
F. A. Cotton was born in 1930 in Philadelphia, where he attended public schools, Drexel University and Temple University (A.B., 1951). He received his Ph.D from Harvard University in 1955 for work done under the supervision of Nobel laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson and immediately took up an Instructorship at MIT. In 1961, at age 31, he attained the rank of full Professor, the youngest person to achieve that rank at MIT up to that time. In 1972 he came to Texas A&M University as Robert A. Welch Professor and he presently holds the positions of Doherty-Welch Distinguished Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Molecular Structure and Bonding. Professor Cotton is known both for his research and as the author of some of the most important chemistry textbooks of our time. His research has dealt with nearly every important phase of inorganic chemistry, especially the chemistry of the metallic elements, as well as with the structural chemistry of enzymes. His investigations have resulted in more than 1250 research publications, mostly in journals published by the American Chemical Society. He has made major contributions to the area of metal carbonyl compounds and organometallic compounds and his work on the structure of staphylococcal nuclease was one of the first high resolution enzyme structure determinations. This structure today provides the basis for extensive studies of enzyme catalysis employing site-specific mutagenesis. His greatest contributions, however, are in the field of metal-metal bonding, where, beginning in 1962, he discovered the existence of double, triple and quadruple ix
Announcement metal-metal bonds, as well as a host of compounds containing metal atom clusters with single bonds. In the course of his work on compounds with multiple metal-metal bonds, he has expanded the field from his original recognition that a quadruple bond (the first one ever recognized, although Linus Pauling was prescient enough to imply, in 1960, that such a bond might reasonably be expected) exists in Re2CI~- to include nearly the entire group of d-block transition elements. What is particularly impressive about this work is the way it has included not only the original preparations of nearly every one of the new M-M multiple bonds, and extensive studies of their chemical properties, but also extensive studies of their physical properties, via hundreds of crystal structures, detailed spectroscopic studies (including oriented single-crystal polarized spectra at 5° K), and both simple and sophisticated theoretical work. This body of work, along with very extensive studies of metal cluster compounds, has entirely transformed our understanding of how the chemistry of about half the elements in the periodic table really works. His books include "Advanced Inorganic Chemistry", editions 1-5, co-authored with Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson. This book, of which more than a half million copies, in fourteen foreign language translations as well as English, have been printed, has been the leading textbook in its field for a quarter of a century. Cotton's textbook "Chemical Applications of Group Theory" is world famous (six translations) as the book from which virtually all chemists have learned the mathematics for dealing with molecular symmetry. In addition, he has written a very successful high school text, "Chemistry, An Investigative Approach", a smaller inorganic text (again with G. Wilkinson and available in ten translations), and several monographs, of which "Multiple Bonds between Metal Atoms" co-authored with R. A. Walton is most notable. Professor Cotton has received many forms of recognition for his work. He was elected to the U. S. National Academy of Sciences at the age of 37, and has been Chairman of the Class of Physical Sciences (1985-1988) and a member of the Council (1992-1994). He is also an honorary or foreign member of the G6ttingen Academy, the Royal Danish Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academia Europaea, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the French Academy of Science, the Societa Chimica Italiana and the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as being a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and an honorary life member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has received the Baekeland, Kirkwood, Gibbs, Nichols, Richards, Pauling and Cotton gold medals from ACS sections. He is, in fact, the only American chemist ever to receive all of these seven gold medals. He was the first recipient of the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry and has also received the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry (making him the first person to receive both ACS inorganic awards). In 1983 he received both the National Medal of Science and the Award in Physical and Mathematical Sciences from the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1990 he received the King Faisal International Prize in Science and the Award in Chemical Sciences of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, and in 1994 he was the recipient of the Paracelsus Medal of the Swiss Chemical Society and the Robert A. Welch Foundation prize. He holds nineteen honorary doctorates. Professor Cotton has served on many editorial boards, including those of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Inorganic Chemistry and Organometallics. He has been Chairman of the Inorganic Division of the ACS and was an ACS Councillor for five years. During 1985-86 he served as the Alexander Todd Professor at Cambridge University. He has served on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of Argonne National Laboratory and the National Research Laboratory Commission of Texas, and is currently a member of the National Science Board. He has also served the National Academy of Sciences in numerous positions, including membership on the Council, the governing board of the NRC and COSEPUP.
Announcement The Polyhedron Prize is awarded biennially and consists of a gold medal, a citation and U.S. $10,000. Previous prize winners are : 1989 Professor Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson "for the outstanding contributions made to organometallic chemistry and the new horizons opened in this field". 1991 Professor Richard H. Holm "for his pioneering contributions to transition metal compounds with sulphur, thiolato and related ligands, in particular those cluster compounds of iron and molybdenum that have relevance to, and provide models for, species in biological systems such as ferredoxins, and for his continuing work in these areas and others such as oxygen and imido group transfer reactions". 1993 Professor M. Frederick Hawthorne "for his pioneering studies on boron hydrides, carborane complexes, and their uses in catalysis and biology radioimaging".
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