Buck Wild

Sometimes, posts just fall in your lap.

An enthused reader sent along the link for the latest MIT Chemformation newsletter. Standard stuff, really: announced awards, funded grants, some recent paper abstracts. But the 'diamond in the rough' popped up on Page 3, where one Prof. Stephen "BUCK WILD" Buchwald hung out with MIT undergrads for a ClubChem-sponsored dinner.

Credit: MIT Dept. of Chemistry

When we last saw Prof. Buchwald on Just Like Cooking, he was dressed up like a skeleton to hand out Halloween candy. In this edition, we learn even more about the man behind the mask:

"...students engaged Prof. Buchwald in an informal discussion that focussed [sic] on his enthusiasm for the Indiana University Hoosiers, his love for mystery novels..."

"Professor Buchwald['s]...daily jokes and spontaneous operatic singing made lectures a real treat."

College sports? Comedy? Opera? All with a dash of catalysis on the side, no doubt.

(I have to meet this guy someday)

Chemists in Costume

Source: J. Chem. Soc. 1937, 705.

While poring over papers this weekend, I ran across two photos of chemists I couldn't resist sharing. Although many folks think of chemists as old men with frizzy white hair, glasses, and lab coats, these two pictures show them in a different light.

First, a portrait of Camille Matignon, appeared in a four-page obituary from a 1937 issue of J. Chem. Soc. Matignon held the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the Collège de France for 26 years, rubbing elbows with Berthelot and Le Chatelier. Matignon served as an editor, public speaker, President of the French Chemical Society, and was named a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.

The obituary comments on his "...striking personality and gay, vivacious enthusiasm..." I think that statement compliments this portrait rather well, don't you?


The second photo, stolen borrowed from the MIT Chemistry Department newsletter Chemformation, shows a fairly famous organic chemist disguised in a skeletal visage for Halloween. I won't spoil it for those who want to take a guess, but I've provided a link to the MIT faculty page, if you need a hint...

Source: E. Vinogradova / MIT