Masthead - C&EN Global Enterprise (ACS Publications)


Masthead - C&EN Global Enterprise (ACS Publications)pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-09545-mastheadC&EN Global E...

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Editorial 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036 (202) 872-4600 or (800) 227-5558 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Bibiana Campos Seijo EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Amanda Yarnell PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Rachel Sheremeta Pepling SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER: Marvel A. Wills BUSINESS NEW YORK CITY: (212) 608-6306 Michael McCoy, Executive Editor Rick Mullin (Senior Editor), Marc S. Reisch (Senior Correspondent), Alexander H. Tullo (Senior Correspondent), Rachel Eskenazi (Administrative Assistant). BOSTON: Ryan Cross (Assistant Editor). CHICAGO: (917) 710-0924 Lisa M. Jarvis (Senior Correspondent). HONG KONG: 852 9093 8445 Jean-François Tremblay (Senior Correspondent). LONDON: 44 1494 564 316 Alex Scott (Senior Editor). WEST COAST: (315) 825-8566 Melody M. Bomgardner (Senior Editor) POLICY WEST COAST: (925) 519-6681 Jyllian Kemsley, Executive Editor WASHINGTON: Cheryl Hogue (Senior Correspondent) Britt E. Erickson (Senior Editor), Andrea L. Widener (Senior Editor) SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY/EDUCATION WASHINGTON: Lauren K. Wolf, Executive Editor, Deputy Editorial Director Celia Henry Arnaud (Senior Editor), Stuart A. Borman (Senior Correspondent), Matt Davenport (Associate Editor, Multimedia), Emma Hiolski (Contributing Editor), Kerri Jansen (Assistant Editor, Multimedia), Tien M. Nguyen (Assistant Editor), Stephen K. Ritter (Senior Correspondent). BERLIN: 49 30 2123 3740 Sarah Everts (Senior Editor). BOSTON: (973) 922-0175 Bethany Halford (Senior Editor). CHICAGO: (847) 679-1156 Mitch Jacoby (Senior Correspondent). WEST COAST: (626) 765-6767 Michael Torrice (Deputy Executive Editor) JOURNAL NEWS & COMMUNITY (510) 768-7657 Corinna Wu (Senior Editor) (651) 447-6226 Jessica H. Marshall (Associate Editor) ACS NEWS & SPECIAL FEATURES Linda Wang (Senior Editor) EDITORIAL PROJECTS EDITOR: Jessica Morrison AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EDITOR: Dorea I. Reeser EDITING & PRODUCTION Kimberly R. Bryson, Executive Editor Sabrina J. Ashwell (Assistant Editor), Craig Bettenhausen (Associate Editor), Melissa T. Gilden (Assitant Editor), Taylor C. Hood (Assistant Editor), Manny I. Fox Morone (Associate Editor), Alexandra A. Taylor (Assistant Editor), Jason Trader (Production Specialist) C&EN MEDIA PRODUCTION LAB Robert Bryson, Creative Director, Head of Media Production Lab Tchad K. Blair, Head of UI/UX Design Robin L. Braverman (Senior Art Director), Luis A. Carrillo (Web Production Manager), Ty A. Finocchiaro (Senior Web Associate), Yang H. Ku (Art Director), William A. Ludwig (Art Director), Kay Youn (Art Director) C&EN BRANDLAB Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, Executive Editor Jeff Lee (Senior Editor), Kirsten Dobson (Marketing Manager), SALES & MARKETING Stephanie Holland, Assistant Director, Advertising Sales & Marketing Natalia Bokhari (Advertising Operations Manager), Sondra Hadden (Senior Marketing Manager), Joyleen SanFeliz Parnell (Advertising Operations Associate), Quyen Pham (Lead Generation Associate), Ed Rather (Recruitment Advertising Product Manager), Shelly E. Savage (Recruitment Advertising Associate) ADVISORY BOARD Deborah Blum, Raychelle Burks, Jinwoo Cheon, Kendrew H. Colton, FrançoisXavier Coudert, Cathleen Crudden, Gautam R. Desiraju, Paula T. Hammond, Matthew Hartings, Christopher Hill, Peter Nagler, Anubhav Saxena, Dan Shine, Michael Sofia, William Tolman, James C. Tung, Jill Venton, Helma Wennemers, Geofrey K. Wyatt, Deqing Zhang Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Thomas M. Connelly Jr., Executive Director & CEO Brian D. Crawford, President, Publications Division EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicole S. Sampson (Chair), ACS Board of Directors Chair Pat N. Confalone, ACS President Allison A. Campbell, Cynthia J. Burrows, Jerzy Klosin, John Russell, Gary B. Schuster Copyright 2017, American Chemical Society Canadian GST Reg. No. R127571347 Volume 95, Number 45

Giants of chemistry

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ast week we celebrated the birthdays of two giants in the history of science: Marie Curie and Lise Meitner. Marie Curie was born on Nov. 7, 1867, which makes this year the 150th anniversary of her birth. Of course it is an opportunity to revisit her life and achievements, which you can read about in C&EN. She was a remarkable individual, and her life is a tale of resilience, determination, and plain doggedness in the pursuit of science. She had no formal training in math or science, yet she went on to become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person and only woman to win twice. She was also the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. What’s more, her family legacy will forever be remembered: She, her husband Pierre, and her daughter Irène collected a total of four Nobel Prizes. Lise Meitner was also born on Nov. 7 but 11 years after Marie. She was an Austrian physicist who will go down in history for being the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. With her collaborator, Otto Hahn, she led the small group of scientists who first discovered the nuclear fission of uranium when it absorbed an extra neutron. While Marie received Nobel recognition, Meitner is remembered for exactly the opposite: She did not share in the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for nuclear fission, which was awarded exclusively to Hahn. This was despite receiving 48 nominations by some of the greatest minds in science, including Niels Bohr and Max Planck. For comparison, Bohr received 22 nominations, and Planck received 74. Both became Nobelists. The controversy aside, these two women have a tremendous legacy. They’ll always be remembered in the periodic table because both have elements named after them: the element with atomic number 96, curium, and the element with atomic number 109, meitnerium. The curie, a unit of radioactivity, is also named in honor of the Curie family—although the commission that agreed on the name apparently never specified

whether it was named after Pierre, Marie, or both of them. This anniversary made me think of the giants of chemistry we have lost in recent times. Only in the past month or so, we announced that Ron Breslow had died at age 96 and that Gilbert Stork passed away at 95. They were preceded in early October by Isabella Karle, who many would argue also deserved a Nobel. She died at age 95. These are just a few of those we said goodbye to in the past few months. Related to this news, I read with interest Jeffrey Seeman’s commentary for the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry in which he reflects on the recent deaths—and lives—of so many giants of what he calls the Golden Age of Chemistry. In his piece he asks the question: “Is there something fundamentally special about THIS generation of chemists that distinguishes them from the greatest chemists of earlier generations?” Seeman says there is, but I’d argue that there isn’t something inherently special about that generation, or any generation for that matter—just a different set of circumstances. These giants lived through a period in which chemical knowledge exploded, transforming the academic and commercial enterprises. In that sense, they were pioneers and trailblazers and have gone, as Curie and Meitner will go, down in the annals of chemical history. But the fact that their generation is not inherently special doesn’t diminish their achievements in any way. They are still giants and always will be.

Editor-in-chief @BibianaCampos

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.

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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | NOVEMBER 13, 2017