Geoffrey wilkinson actor

Geoffrey wilkinson obituary
Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson FRS (14 July 1921 – 26 September 1996) was a Nobel laureate English chemist who pioneered inorganic chemistry and homogeneous transition.
Biographical I was born in Springside, a village close to Todmorden in west Yorkshire on July 14th, 1921.

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Wilkinson, Geoffrey

(b. Springside, near Todmorden, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, 14 July 1921;

d. London, United Kingdom, 26 September 1996), inorganic chemistry, radiochemistry, coordination chemistry, organometallic chemistry, and catalysis chemistry.

Wilkinson was one of the most influential inorganic chemists in the last half of the twentieth century. The extraordinary insight that he gained into the chemistry of most of the elements of the periodic table stemmed largely from his early work on radiochemistry. His subsequent work at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before returning to his native Britain in 1956, introduced him to the relatively new science of organometallic chemistry, to which he made fundamental advances in metallocene chemistry (in particular his early recognition of the true nature of ferrocene), which was

justly recognized by his Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded in 1973.

Later his work in transition metal chemistry was wide-ranging and led to applications of coordination com

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Geoffrey Wilkinson

English chemist and Nobel prize winner (1921–1996)

Sir Geoffrey WilkinsonFRS^[1] (14 July 1921 – 26 September 1996) was a Nobel laureate English chemist who pioneered inorganic chemistry and homogeneous transition metalcatalysis.^[6]^[7]

Education and early life

Wilkinson was born at Springside, Todmorden, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father, Henry Wilkinson, was a master house painter and decorator; his mother, Ruth, worked in a local cotton mill. One of his uncles, an organist and choirmaster, had married into a family that owned a small chemical company making Epsom and Glauber's salts for the pharmaceutical industry; this is where he first developed an interest in chemistry.

He was educated at the local council primary school and, after winning a County Scholarship in 1932, went to Todmorden Grammar School. His physics teacher there, Luke Sutcliffe, had also taught Sir John Cockcroft, who received a Nobel Prize for "splitting the atom". In 1939 he obtained a Royal Scholarship for study at Imperial College

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Geoffrey Wilkinson was born in the village of Springside, c. 1.5 miles from Todmorden, West Riding, Yorkshire on 14^th July, 1921. His father, Henry Wilkinson, was a painter and decorator, running a family firm. He died in the early seventies and his mother, Ruth, in the 1960s. He had a brother, John also a chemist, and a sister, Barbara, both younger than him.

Geoff attended Todmorden Grammar School. He was the School’s second Nobel Prizewinner, the first being the physicist Sir John Cockcroft for splitting the atom (Physics, 1951). They were both taught by the same physics teacher, Luke Sutcliffe. His BSc and PhD were from Imperial College, London.

Geoff went to Canada in 1942 to work on the Chalk River Project, which was a joint UK – Canada venture aimed at making a nuclear reactor, which was successful. The laboratory was directed by Sir John Cockroft. Geoff was always tickled to remember that he had shared a cabin with the spy, Alan Nunn May, on the way over to Canada.

After the war, his interest in nuclear chemistry took him to Berkeley, California, to work with Gl