Roald Hoffmann

Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937)<ref>Hoffmann's birth name was Roald Safran. Hoffmann is the surname adopted by his stepfather in the years after World War II.</ref> is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University.<ref name="interview">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name = nobel >Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Escape from the Holocaust

Hoffmann was born in Złoczów, Poland (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), to a Polish-Jewish family, and was named in honor of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. His parents were Clara (Rosen), a teacher, and Hillel Safran, a civil engineer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After Germany invaded Poland and occupied the town, his family was placed in a labor camp where his father, who was familiar with much of the local infrastructure, was a valued prisoner. As the situation grew more dangerous, with prisoners being transferred to extermination camps, the family bribed guards to allow an escape. They arranged with a Ukrainian neighbor named Mykola Dyuk for Hoffmann, his mother, two uncles and an aunt to hide in the attic and a storeroom of the local schoolhouse, where they remained for eighteen months, from January 1943 to June 1944, while Hoffmann was aged 5 to 7.<ref>The rescue of Roald Hoffmann Template:Webarchive at Yad Vashem website</ref><ref name="COH">Template:Cite book</ref>

His father remained at the labor camp, but was able to occasionally visit, until he was tortured and killed by the Germans for his involvement in a plot to arm the camp prisoners. When she received the news, his mother attempted to contain her sorrow by writing down her feelings in a notebook her husband had been using to take notes on a relativity textbook he had been reading. While in hiding his mother kept Hoffmann entertained by teaching him to read and having him memorize geography from textbooks stored in the attic, then quizzing him on it. He referred to the experience as having been enveloped in a cocoon of love.<ref>Template:Cite web featuring Roald Hoffman, lecture at the World Science Festival. Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="COH"/> In 1944 they moved to Kraków where his mother remarried.<ref name=nobel/> They adopted her new husband's surname Hoffmann.<ref name=nobel/>

Most of the rest of the family was killed in the Holocaust, though one grandmother and a few others survived.<ref>The Tense Middle Template:Webarchive by Roald Hoffmann, story on NPR. Retrieved September 29, 2006.</ref> They migrated to the United States on the troop carrier Ernie Pyle in 1949.<ref name=Passerelles>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Hoffmann visited Zolochiv with his adult son (by then a parent of a five-year-old) in 2006 and found that the attic where he had hidden was still intact, but the storeroom had been incorporated, ironically enough, into a chemistry classroom. In 2009, a monument to Holocaust victims was built in Zolochiv on Hoffmann's initiative.<ref>Holocaust monument dedicated in western Ukraine Template:Webarchive. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. July 20, 2009</ref>

Personal life

Hoffmann married Eva Börjesson in 1960. They have two children, Hillel Jan and Ingrid Helena.<ref name=NobelBiography/>

He describes himself as "an atheist who is moved by religion."<ref>Liberato Cardellini: "A final and more personal question: You defined yourself as 'an atheist who is moved by religion'. Looking at the tenor of your life and the many goals you have achieved, one wonders where your inner force comes from." Roald Hoffmann: "The atheism and the respect for religion Template:Sic the same source. I observe that in every culture on Earth, absolutely every one, human beings have constructed religious systems. There is a need in us to try to understand, to see that there is something that unites us spiritually. So scientists who do not respect religion fail in their most basic task—observation. Human beings need the spiritual. The same observation reveals to me a multitude of religious constructions—gods of nature, spirits, the great monotheistic religions. It seems to me there can't be a God or gods; there are just manifestations of a human-constructed spirituality." Liberato Cardellini, Looking for Connections: An Interview with Roald Hoffmann Template:Webarchive, page 1634.</ref>

Education and academic credentials

Hoffmann graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School,<ref name=Cardellini>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> where he won a Westinghouse science scholarship. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College) in 1958. He earned his Master of Arts degree in 1960 from Harvard University. He earned his doctor of philosophy degree from Harvard University while working<ref name=Hoffmann1962TheoryIII/><ref name=Hoffmann1962TheoryI/><ref name=Hoffmann1962LCAO/><ref name=Hoffmann1962Sequential/><ref name=Hoffmann1963Carboranes/> under joint supervision of Martin Gouterman and subsequent 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner William N. Lipscomb, Jr. Hoffman worked on the molecular orbital theory of polyhedral molecules.<ref name=Cardellini/> Under Lipscomb's direction the Extended Hückel method was developed by Lawrence Lohr and by Roald Hoffmann.<ref name=Hoffmann1962TheoryI/><ref name=Lipscomb1963/> This method was later extended by Hoffmann.<ref name=Hoffmann1963/> In 1965, he went to Cornell University and has remained there, where he is a professor emeritus.

Scientific research

Hoffmann's research and interests have been in the electronic structure of stable and unstable molecules, and in the study of transition states in reactions.<ref name=Hoffmann1962TheoryIII>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Hoffmann1962TheoryI>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Hoffmann1962LCAO>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Hoffmann1962Sequential>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Hoffmann1963Carboranes>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Hoffmann1963>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Lipscomb1963>Lipscomb WN. Boron Hydrides, W. A. Benjamin Inc., New York, 1963, Chapter 3. Template:ISBN missing</ref> He has investigated the structure and reactivity of both organic and inorganic molecules, and examined problems in organo-metallic and solid-state chemistry.<ref name=Passerelles/> Hoffman has developed semiempirical and nonempirical computational tools and methods such as the extended Hückel method which he proposed in 1963 for determining molecular orbitals.<ref name=NobelBiography>Template:Cite web</ref>

With Robert Burns Woodward he developed the Woodward–Hoffmann rules for elucidating reaction mechanisms and their stereochemistry. They realized that chemical transformations could be approximately predicted from subtle symmetries and asymmetries in the electron orbitals of complex molecules.<ref name=NYT/> Their rules predict differing outcomes, such as the types of products that will be formed when two compounds are activated by heat compared with those produced under activation by light.<ref name=Woodward>Template:Cite web</ref> For this work Hoffmann received the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry, sharing it with Japanese chemist Kenichi Fukui,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> who had independently resolved similar issues. (Woodward was not included in the prize, which is given only to living persons,<ref name="Nobel"/> although he had won the 1965 prize for other work.) In his Nobel Lecture, Hoffmann introduced the isolobal analogy for predicting the bonding properties of organometallic compounds.<ref name=NobelLecture>Template:Cite web</ref>

Some of Hoffman's most recent work, with Neil Ashcroft and Vanessa Labet, examines bonding in matter under extreme high pressure.<ref name=Passerelles/>

Artistic interests

File:Roald Hoffmann.jpg

Hoffmann in 2009

The World Of Chemistry with Roald Hoffmann

In 1988 Hoffmann became the series host in a 26-program PBS education series by Annenberg/CPB, The World of Chemistry, opposite with series demonstrator Don Showalter. While Hoffmann introduced a series of concepts and ideas, Showalter provided a series of demonstrations and other visual representations to help students and viewers to better understand the information.

Entertaining Science

Since the spring of 2001, Hoffmann has been the host of the monthly series Entertaining Science at New York City's Cornelia Street Cafe,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which explores the juncture between the arts and science.

Non-fiction

He has published books on the connections between art and science: Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry and Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science.<ref name=Magda>Template:Cite news</ref>

Poetry

Hoffmann is also a writer of poetry.<ref name=Amato>Template:Cite news</ref> His collections include The Metamict State (1987, Template:ISBN),<ref name=ChemWorld2013>Template:Cite news</ref> Gaps and Verges (1990, Template:ISBN),<ref name=NYT>Template:Cite news</ref> and Chemistry Imagined (1993, Template:ISBN, co-produced with artist Vivian Torrence.<ref name=NYT/><ref name=King/>

Plays

He co-authored with Carl Djerassi the play Oxygen, about the discovery of oxygen and the experience of being a scientist. Hoffman's play, "Should've" (2006) about ethics in science and art, has been produced in workshops, as has a play based on his experiences in the holocaust, "We Have Something That Belongs to You" (2009), later retitled "Something That Belongs to You.<ref name=Magda/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Honors and awards

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Roald Hoffmann with the AIC Gold Medal

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

In 1981, Hoffmann received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Kenichi Fukui "for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions".<ref name="Nobel">The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1981 Template:Webarchive. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on April 2, 2014.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web. Cornell Chemistry Faculty Research</ref>

Other awards

Hoffmann has won many other awards,<ref name=NNDB/> and is the recipient of more than 25 honorary degrees.<ref name=Ziabari>Template:Cite web</ref>

• ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, 1969<ref name=ACSPC>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Award of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, 1970, "pour sa methode de calcul des fonctions d'onde moleculaires et pour ses etudes theoriques des reactions chimiques"<ref name=Quantum>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1971<ref name=AAAS>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected 1972<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Arthur C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry, 1973 (with Robert B. Woodward)<ref name=ACSACCA>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1981<ref name="Nobel"/>
• Inorganic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1982 (sponsored by Monsanto)<ref name=ACSAIOCA>Template:Cite web</ref>
• National Medal of Science, 1983<ref name=Sloan>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=NationalMedal>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, elected 1984<ref name=NNDB>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1984<ref name=formemrs/><ref name=RSFM>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, elected 1985<ref name=NNDB/><ref name=RSAS>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Foreign Member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, elected 1988<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Priestley Medal, 1990<ref name=King>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Harvard Centennial Medalist, 1994<ref name=GSASCM>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Pimentel Award in Chemical Education, 1996<ref name=A202>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• E.A. Wood Science Writing Award, 1997<ref name=abrahams>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Literaturpreis of the Verband der Chemischen Industrie for his textbook The Same and Not The Same, 1997<ref name=Koch>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Kolos Medal, 1998<ref name=Kolos>Template:Cite web</ref>
• American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal, 2006<ref name=CHFAIC>Template:Cite web</ref>
• James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry, 2009<ref name=Grady-Stack>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fellow of the American Chemical Society, 2009<ref name=ACSFellows>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fellow of the Kosciuszko Foundation of Eminent Scientists of Polish Origin and Ancestry, 2014<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture, Science History Institute, 2019<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Institute">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Marie Curie Medal of the Polish Chemical Society, 2019<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Hoffmann is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science<ref name=Quantum2>Template:Cite web</ref> and the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.<ref name=Sponsors>Template:Cite web</ref>

In August 2007, the American Chemical Society held a symposium at its biannual national meeting to honor Hoffmann's 70th birthday.<ref name=Kovac>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2008, the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities awarded him its Lichtenberg Medal.

In August 2017, another symposium was held at the 254th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Washington DC, to honor Hoffmann's 80th birthday.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Hoffmann Institute of Advanced Materials in Shenzhen, named after him, was founded in his honor in February 2018<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and formally opened in his presence in May 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2023, Roald Hoffmann was named by Carnegie Corporation of New York as an honoree of the Great Immigrants Awards.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links

• Template:Nobelprize