Robert Burns Woodward (April 10, 1917 – July 8, 1979) was an American organic chemist. He made many significant contributions to modern organic chemistry, especially in the synthesis and structure determination of complex natural products, and worked closely with Roald Hoffmann on theoretical studies of chemical reactions. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1965.
Woodward was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Margaret (née Burns, an i...
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Robert Burns Woodward (April 10, 1917 – July 8, 1979) was an American organic chemist. He made many significant contributions to modern organic chemistry, especially in the synthesis and structure determination of complex natural products, and worked closely with Roald Hoffmann on theoretical studies of chemical reactions. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1965.
Woodward was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Margaret (née Burns, an immigrant from Scotland) and to Arthur Chester Woodward, son of Roxbury, Mass. apothecary, Harlow Elliot Woodward. When Robert was one year old, his father died in the flu pandemic of 1918.
From a very early age, Woodward was attracted to and engaged in private study of chemistry while he attended the public primary and secondary schools of Quincy, Massachusetts. By the time he entered high school, he had already managed to perform most of the experiments in Ludwig Gattermann's then widely used textbook of experimental organic chemistry. In...
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