A Perspective on Organic Chemistry: Physical Organic Chemistry

摘要

A physical organic chemist wants to understand the detailed sequence of bond makings and bondbreakings by which new or well-known reactions take place, i.e., the reaction mechanism, and toidentify any metastable intermediates involved. The ultimate goal of such studies is to predict, andhope to control, chemical reactivity by determining how molecular structure and the immediate localenvironment affect a reaction of probative interest. Physical organic chemistry, in turn, providesstructural insight, upon which others significantly depend for making new materials and forpredicting and understanding new chemical and biochemical processes. I was fortunate in my ownresearch to be able to study photocatalysis and photoinduced electron transfer as unifying themesthat underlined our most significant work.