A Personal History of the Benzidine Rearrangement
Bull. Hist. Chem. 19 (1996) 77 A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE BENZIDINE REARRANGEMENT nr . Shn, x h Unvrt What I have to say today amounts more to a personal pounds) and which I had been studying with E. E. Turner account rather than an honest-to-goodness history of the at Bedford College in London during the years benzidine rearrangements. Interest in the mechanism of 1945-1947. My arrangement with Henry Gilman broke these rearrangements spans this century from the early up in the fall, 1948, and I became an independent re- 1900s to the present day. Prominent in studies of the search associate supported by the Department of Chem- rearrangements and their mechanisms during these istry. In return for that support, I became an instructor ninety years is the name of the man whose memory we of a quiz section in sophomore organic chemistry when honor today, C. K. Ingold, associated also with his the section's graduate-student instructor left Ames on long-time colleague and collaborator E. D. Hughes and short notice. During one of the quiz-section periods a their younger coworker Derek Banthorpe. Also promi- student asked how the benzidine rearrangement, men- nent in these studies are the names of Paul Jacobson, tioned only briefly in his book, occurred (Eq. 1) this Michael Dewar, Robert Carlin, Miroslav Vecera, and equation shows two products, as is correct. George Hammond and me. I don't know how or why Carlin and Vecera took up the benzidine rearrangements. Carlin, of course, was much interested in the Fischer indole reaction, and that is connected with benzidine rearrangements, as you know.
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