Sir Christopher Ingold- A Major Prophet of Organic Chemistry (Leffek, Kenneth T.)

Abstract

In recent years, many more biographies of chemists seem to have been published than ever before. One reason, of course, may be that there are many more chemists and, in fact, it is possible that there are actually fewer biographies published per capita in the chemical world. The character of those I have read in recent years is quite variable. For example, recent biographies of Linus Pauling are somewhat derivative, in the “gotcha” style of modern journalism; in contrast, the books in the ACS autobiographical Profiles series are, for the most part, rather specialized reviews of the individual’s chemical contributions, usually made more generally interesting by numerous photographs of the individual, his family, and colleagues.