top 5 living chemist in the world

[Rabbiter]

in your opinion who is your top 5 living chemist in the world based on intellect, and impact...

 

they have to be living

[Xittenn]

Well obviously and in no particular order:

 

John Cuthber, CharonY, hypervalent_iodine, mississippichem, and the crazy_alien

 

 

but in all seriousness now, I can't answer this question directly as I am not sufficiently familiar with academic activities. I do however, find myself isolating pockets of scientists that have made significant impacts and stand out in my mind, that I would make suggestions on where to search for formidable characters that meet the description. One of my top personal choices in the matter would be many of the scientists in Japan working on biochemistry projects that revolve around cell and tissue engineering.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Xittenn

[DrRocket]

 

they have to be living

 

How do you determine that ?

[Phi for All]

#1 Walter Hartwell White.

[mississippichem]

Well, he died in 2007, but I'm still using this as a platform to glorify the accomplishments of one of my personal heros:

 

Frank A. Cotton

 

In addition to his research, Cotton taught inorganic chemistry. He authored Chemical Applications of Group Theory.[9] This text focuses on group theoretical analysis of bonding and spectroscopy.

Among college students, Cotton is perhaps best known as the coauthor of the textbook Advanced Inorganic Chemistry, now in its sixth English edition. Coauthored with his thesis advisor, Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, the textbook is colloquially known as "Cotton and Wilkinson." The text surveys coordination chemistry, cluster chemistry, homogeneous catalysis, and organometallic chemistry.[3][10]

Cotton served on various editorial boards of scientific journals, including those of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Inorganic Chemistry, and Organometallics. He chaired the Division of Inorganic Chemistry of the ACS and was an ACS Councillor for five years. He served on the U.S. National Science Board (1986–1998), which oversees the National Science Foundation, and the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of Argonne National Laboratory, and the National Research Laboratory Commission of Texas.

Cotton supervised the thesis research of 116 doctoral students[8] as well as more than 150 postdoctoral associates.[5]

 

Cotton was a pioneer in the topic of chemical group theory, one of my favorite topics in the chemical sciences. Group theory provides modern chemists with a POWERFUL tool for analyzing electronic and vibrational spectroscopy. Cotton's contributions to cluster chemistry are also completely irreplaceable.

 

Among some of his "stamp collecting" achievements, less impressive though still quite noteworthy, are the discovery of the quadruple bond. The interesting part is that he was able to predict the existence of higher order covalent d-d bonding in a time when the current paradigm was that they were unlikely to exist. This insight came from his intense understanding of quantum theory and group theory notions from pure mathematics. Any of his textbooks are pure gold.

 

RIP Frank Cotton

 

Sorry that I didn't meet the requirements of the OP but I couldn't resist.

 

#1 Walter Hartwell White.

 

Boo!

 

EDIT: to chastise Phi or All

Edited February 17, 2012 by mississippichem

[DrRocket]

Cotton was a pioneer in the topic of chemical group theory, one of my favorite topics in the chemical sciences. Group theory provides modern chemists with a POWERFUL tool for analyzing electronic and vibrational spectroscopy.

 

 

I that case you might want to read a bit about Eugene Wigner.

 

Wigner won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for work in quantum mechanics, primarily for introducing group theoretic methods.

 

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1963/

 

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1963/wigner.html

 

While he was not a chemist, his doctorate was in Chemical Engineering.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Wigner