GeorgWittig (June 16, 1897 in Berlin (Germany) - August 26, 1987) was a German chemist who reported a method for synthesis of alkenes from aldehydes and ketones using compounds called phosphonium ylides in the Wittig reaction.
Wittig's contributions also include the preparation of phenyllithium and the discovery of the 1,2-Wittig rearrangement and the 2,3-Wittig rearrangement.
Wittig was well known in the chemistry community for being a consummate experimenter and observer of chemical transformations, while caring very little for the theoretical and mechanistic underpinnings of the work he produced.
GeorgWittig 1897–1987, German chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Marburg, 1926.
During his career, Wittig was a professor at the universities of Braunschweig, Freiburg, TUbingen, and Heidelberg.
He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Herbert C. Brown for his discovery of a class of compounds, ylides, that substantially facilitate the synthesis of certain organic compounds.
Wittig, Georg(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-31)
German chemist whose method of synthesizing olefins (alkenes) from carbonyl compounds is a reaction often termed the Wittig synthesis.
Wittig was born in Berlin and studied at Kassel and Marburg.
In the Wittig reaction, which he first demonstrated 1954, a carbonyl compound (aldehyde or ketone) reacts with an organic phosphorus compound, an alkylidenetriphenylphosphorane, (C6H5)3P=CR2, where R is a hydrogen atom or an organic radical.
Organic chemist GeorgWittig's investigations led him to discover in 1953 a chemical process for synthesizing complex compounds such as vitamin A, vitamin D derivatives, steroids, and biological pesticides.
Georg Friedrich Karl Wittig was born on June 16, 1897, in Berlin, Germany, to Gustav Wittig, a professor of fine arts at the University of Berlin, and Martha (Dombrowski) Wittig.
Wittig died on August 26, 1987, in Heidelberg at the age of ninety.
GeorgWittig was Professor Hoffmann's supervisor when he was working for his Habilitation.
The "GeorgWittig Lectureship – BASF Guest Professorship for Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg" was initiated at the suggestion of Professor Dr. Peter Hofmann, one of Wittig's successors to the chair of organic chemistry.
From 1956 to 1967 GeorgWittig (1897-1987) was professor of organic chemistry at Heidelberg University.
Stereoselectivity in the Wittig reaction depends on the ylid.
Wittig graduated from the University of Marburg in 1923, received his doctorate there in 1926, and remained as a lecturer in chemistry until 1932.
In investigating reactions involving carbanions, negatively charged organic species, Wittig discovered a class of compounds called ylides mediating a particular type of reaction that became known as Wittig reactions and that proved of great value in the synthesis of numerous organic compounds.
Georg-Wittig-Lectureship Preisträger(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-31)
The HFMC 2001 has evolved from the "Georg- Wittig-Lectureship" (prize-winner R. Noyori) which was sponsored by BASF.
This honorary lectureship was jointly conferred by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and BASF in 1999.
A poster presentation with contributions from the Heidelberg faculty of chemistry and from invited external research groups will round off the HFMC together with a supporting program.
GeorgWittig well deserved his Nobel Prize in 1979 - and is a hero of mine because he was a doddering 56 years old when he discovered this very versatile reaction.
What Wittig discovered was that phosphines (the P equivalent of amines) easily form phosphonium salts with alkyl halides and that these salts readily lose HX with a strong base.
What makes the Wittig reaction so useful is that it can tolerate all kinds of functionality.
Wittig discovered his versatile route to alkenes via ylide molecules - the Wittig reaction - in 1949.
Educated originally at Tübingen, Wittig spent periods at Braunschweig, Freiburg, back to Tübingen again, before taking up the post as director of the organic chemistry department at Heidelberg where he became an emeritus professor in 1967, remaining there until the end of his career.
In 1979, Herbert C. Brown and GeorgWittig were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize:
