science · 03 October 1904 · 120 years ago
birth
Born 3 Oct 1904; died 1989 .
Korean-American chemist who, along with Jean-Marie Lehn and Donald J. Cram, was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his synthesis of the crown ethers - a group of organic compounds with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity when reacting with other atoms and molecules much as do the molecules in living organisms, i.e. molecules that can "recognize" each other and choose with which other molecules they will form complexes. The three researchers studied chemical and physical properties of these complexes and have elucidated the factors that determine the ability of the molecules to recognize each other and fit into one another like a key fits a lock.
OnThisDay.net