A portrait of the chemist: The Lou Allinger story

✍ Scribed by Bowen, J. Philip

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 188 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0192-8651
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-987x(19980130)19:2<vii::aid-jcc2>3.0.co;2-g

✦ Synopsis

Jographi es of famous people, preparing commentaries on newsworthy events, or making movies on historical events. Typically, they are paid handsomely for their efforts. Careful investigation of these self-proclaimed experts more often than not reveals that they totally lack any credible journalistic or historical credentials. So is the case of this writing, except that I am not expecting significant-for that matter, any-financial renumeration.

My claim to the distinction and honor of being asked to write a summary of the career and achievements of Professor Norman L. Allinger can be traced to the fact that I am a friend and colleague-and I have pictures. More on the pictures later. Lou and I have worked closely together over the years, and he has been my computational chemistry mentor.

When the symposium to honor Professor Allinger was in the planning stages, Professors Henry ''Fritz'' Schaefer and Paul von R. Schleyer both came into my office one day. I was asked if I would participate in the proposed symposium and give a presentation. I told both of my senior colleagues that I would be honored and that I had a number of interesting molecular modeling projects that would be appropriate for such an event and suitable for publication in a special edition of the Journal of Computational Chemistry. They looked at one another and then told me that they wanted me to kick off the event! I was told that my lecture would be the most important one and set the tone for the whole meeting. I was deeply honored, but in the back of my mind I imagined that my South-