{"id":24928,"date":"2022-03-24T06:44:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T06:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=24928"},"modified":"2022-03-24T06:44:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T06:44:08","slug":"sir-geoffrey-wilkinson-an-anniversary-celebration-23-march-2022-burlington-house-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rzepa.net\/blog\/?p=24928","title":{"rendered":"Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson: An anniversary celebration. 23 March, 2022, Burlington House, London."},"content":{"rendered":"
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The meeting covered the scientific life of Professor Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson from the perspective of collaborators, friends and family and celebrated three anniversaries, the centenary of his birth (2021), the half-century anniversary of the Nobel prize (2023) and 70 years almost to the day (1 April) since the publication of the seminal article on Ferrocene (2022).[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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The meeting was organised as “inverse hybrid” (to use the new terminology), with a maximum capacity in-person audience attending along with fourteen speakers, three of whom were remote and one who could not attend on the day but whose presentation was given on their behalf. I will not give abstracts for the talks here, but note two common themes that I thought emerged during the day.<\/p>\n

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  1. All the speakers found themes in either their memories of Wilkinson and their time in his laboratories or their current research work that show how he continues to \u00a0influence, along with the famous text book that he co-wrote, the modern world of chemistry. He truly left a remarkable legacy.<\/li>\n
  2. This is a personal observation, but in his day, Wilkinson was famously sceptical of the ability of molecular modelling to cast profound insights into the molecules his group were studying. Yesterday I think with only one or two exceptions, the talks were accompanied by “DFT modelling” helping to provide such insights, either into the reaction mechanisms via energy profiles or into the properties of the molecules themselves, including their spectroscopy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A small exhibition of artefacts included his famous portrait, all the editions of the text book and other items from his desk.<\/p>\n\n\t\t