Chemistry World magazine today published a new appreciation, written by Frances Briggs, of William Lipscomb. It begins with this headline and subhead:
“Fifty years after he won the Nobel, Lipscomb’s insights into boranes continue to pay dividends — From fundamental bonding theory to practical applications, William Lipscomb’s influence can still be felt across chemistry”.
The Chemistry World article does not mention, alas, that during the last decades of his life, Bill was a beloved performer in the annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. An entire generation of people know him primarily from his stage performances!
Here’s what I wrote about Bill in 2011, just after his death [click on the link to see the article];
The photo you see here shows Bill in the 1994 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before an adoring, paper-airplane-throwing audience of 1200 people. You see him dancing in “The Interpretive Dance of the Electrons”