Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Any revolution, political or scientific, affects the language. It comes
with its own lexicon. NMR was no exception. It gave chemists a
lingua
franca
, an idiom that not only extended the vocabulary, but also deep-
ened their understanding of molecules, of their electronic distribution for
instance (Anon. 1962). Almost as an aftereffect, such an improved un-
derstanding of the structure of molecules vastly improved communica-
tion among the tribe. Chemists became more conversant with one an-
other, from being given a language with improved performance.
Equally interesting is the profound effect that NMR had on chemical
thinking. An outstanding case is that of Jean-Marie Lehn. In the 1960s,
Lehn oversaw NMR in his mentor's, Guy Ourisson's, laboratory at the
University of Strasbourg. Lehn thus started his career as an NMR spe-
cialist. It gave him a lifelong attention to even minute details in NMR
spectra. Their deep chemical meaning for sure would have escaped an-
other chemist's eye. Many of Lehn's experiments were designed either
starting from such observations or with NMR in mind as the main tool of
study.
10
Was NMR a mere tool for chemists? It fulfilled several other roles in
the tribal culture. It was a prestige item. Status accrued to scientists who,
somehow, had access to the latest, most expensive, and state-of-the-art
instrumentation. When a visitor came to a laboratory, the tour did not fail
to include a proud display of one's NMR spectrometer(s) - usually in the
basement of the building, given the weight of electromagnets, until su-
perconducting magnets came into general use during the 1970s and
1980s.
Showing off one's NMR equipment (Huisgen 1994)
11
was also done
in scientific journals. Inclusion of an NMR spectrum or several gave al-
lure to one's publications. A cursory look at chemistry journals shows
the start of such practice in the early 1960s, with a steep rise to a maxi-
mum in the 1970s - 1D spectra making room for their 2D siblings (Ernst
1992) - followed by a slow, gradual wane. The cost of the printed page
10
A representative example is one of his numerous studies in supramolecular catalysis
(Hosseini
et al.
1987).
11
The evolution was lightning-swift, with superconducting magnets superseding elec-
tromagnets (McLauchlan 1996) and with the advent of Fourier transform NMR,
which ushered in multidimensional NMR.
