Ferrocene: Ironclad history or rashomon tale?

Angewandte Chemie - International Edition

Volumn 39, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 123-124

  Laszlo, Pierre ^b   Hoffmann, Roald ^a  

^a Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

^b ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE   (France)

Author keywords

Ferrocene; History of chemistry

Indexed keywords

CYCLOPENTADIENE DERIVATIVE; FERROCENE;

CHEMICAL STRUCTURE; HISTORY; MOLECULAR INTERACTION; PUBLICATION; SCIENCE; SHORT SURVEY; STRUCTURE ANALYSIS;

EID: 0034598509     PISSN: 14337851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-3773(20000103)39:1<123::AID-ANIE123>3.0.CO;2-Z     Document Type: Short Survey

References (18)

1. We expand here upon a segment from a recent paper aimed at sociologists, "The Say of Things": R. Hoffmann, P. Laszlo, Soc. Res. 1998, 65, 653-693.
2. T. J. Kealy, P. L. Pauson, Nature 1951, 168, 1039-1040; S. A. Miller, J. A. Tebboth, J. F. Tremaine, J. Chem. Soc. 1952, 632-635. For a description of the chemistry and chronology of these two papers, see G. B. Kauffman, J. Chem. Educ. 1983, 60, 185-186.
3. T. J. Kealy, P. L. Pauson, Nature 1951, 168, 1039-1040; S. A. Miller, J. A. Tebboth, J. F. Tremaine, J. Chem. Soc. 1952, 632-635. For a description of the chemistry and chronology of these two papers, see G. B. Kauffman, J. Chem. Educ. 1983, 60, 185-186.
4. T. J. Kealy, P. L. Pauson, Nature 1951, 168, 1039-1040; S. A. Miller, J. A. Tebboth, J. F. Tremaine, J. Chem. Soc. 1952, 632-635. For a description of the chemistry and chronology of these two papers, see G. B. Kauffman, J. Chem. Educ. 1983, 60, 185-186.
5. Letters from Professor Myron Rosenblum, Brandeis University, to Roald Hoffmann of September 9, 1998, and March 29, 1999.
6. G. Wilkinson, J. Organomet. Chem. 1975, 100, 273-278; Wilkinson dates the visit by Rosenblum to Saturday, January 31st. However, from the evidence in Rosenblum's notebook, the visit predates January 16, 1952. January 30th, 1952 was a Wednesday.
7. The evidence of the Rosenblum notebooks would seem to indicate January 19 and 21 for those dates.
8. G. Wilkinson, M. Rosenblum, M. C. Whiting, R. B. Woodward, J. Am. Chem Soc. 1952, 74, 2125-2126.
9. E. O. Fischer, W. Pfab, Z. Naturforsch. B 1952, 7, 377-379.
10. J. D. Dunitz, Origins Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 1997, 27, 421-427. See also "Forty Years of Ferrocene": J. D. Dunitz in Organic Chemistry: Its Language and Its State of the Art (Ed.: M. V. Kisakurek), Verlag Helvetica Chimica Acta, Basel, 1993, pp. 9-23.
11. J. D. Dunitz, Origins Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 1997, 27, 421-427. See also "Forty Years of Ferrocene": J. D. Dunitz in Organic Chemistry: Its Language and Its State of the Art (Ed.: M. V. Kisakurek), Verlag Helvetica Chimica Acta, Basel, 1993, pp. 9-23.
12. L. E. Orgel, J. D. Dunitz, Nature 1953, 171, 121-122.
13. A third group independently determined the structure of ferrocene: P. F. Eiland, R. Pepinsky, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1952, 74, 4971.
14. Peter Pauson, private communication, recalls that he had crystals of ferrocene in the fall of 1951. He was trying to decide whether to ask Jack Dunitz, or the senior organic crystallographer of the time, J. Monteath Robertson (real or adopted Scotsmen all). Pauson decided on Robertson. Who, according to Pauson, took the crystals to...Cornell, where he asked Lynn Hoard if someone could look at them. The crystals were assigned to a beginning graduate student, who failed to solve the structure.
15. The felicitous coining of the name "ferrocene" is due to Mark Whiting and occurs in the second Harvard paper, R. B. Woodward, M. Rosenblum, M. C. Whiting, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1952, 74, 3458. Apparently "ferrozene" was an early favorite (e-mail from M. C. Whiting to Roald Hoffmann, May 4, 1999).
16. Wilkinson, for instance recounts that William Moffitt, a great young theoretician of the time, told him that the binding of benzene to a transition metal was "not on" (ref. [4], footnote on p. 278).
17. See footnote 41 of P. L. Pauson, Q. Rev. 1955, 391-414.
18. T. M. Zydowsky [tmzinc@aol.com], Chemical Intelligencer, in press.