September 28, 2007 Meeting Joint with the Chemistry Department of Loyola University

Roald Hoffmann
Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Dept of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University “More about Mme. Lavoisier than M. Lavoisier” Note:  Prof. Hoffmann is featured in an article in C&EN, July 30, 2007 (p 51, last paragraph), and at a Presidential Symposium at the Boston ACS meeting, on August 21.

Date:	September 28, 2007
Location:	Loyola University Flanner Hall 1068 W. Sheridan Rd. Chicago, IL

Cost:  $10.00 for members of ACS and their guests, $10.00 for non-members,
     $10 for students or unemployed

Dinner reservations are required and should be received in the Section Office via phone (847-647-8405), fax (847-647-8364), email (chicagoacs@ameritech.net), or web by noon on Tuesday, September 25.   PLEASE HONOR YOUR RESERVATIONS.  The Section must pay for all dinner orders.  No-shows will be billed.

  Due to the incredible response to this meeting, registration is closed.  We regret if you had intended to register and missed our deadline.  For questions, call the Chicago Section office at 847-647-8405.  

4:30 - 6:30 PM   Registration, Flanner Hall lobby
4:30 - 6:30 PM   Poster Session, Loyola Chemistry Student research
5:00 - 5:30 PM   Topical Group Meeting on Patent Law
5:00 - 6:00 PM   Job Club
5:30 - 6:30 PM   Reception for Roald Hoffman, Nobel Laureate
6:30  PM    Dinner at Simpson Living Center
8:00  PM    General Meeting at Flanner Hall Main Auditorium

Abstract: Marie Anne Paulze Lavoisier led a remarkable life – from a privileged family, marrying Antoine Laurent Lavoisier at age 13, studying chemistry, English, art to help her husband, participating in his work, drawing the plates for his most important treatise, engraving them, losing her husband and father in one day to Jacobin terror, marrying (in a disastrous marriage) Count Rumford, another scientists, living on into the Empire.  In the process of telling her story, we will learn a good bit about France at the time of the Revolution, and of M. Lavoisier’s work on the foundations of modern chemistry.  Mme. Lavoisier’s accomplishments as an artist are traced through her work and letters in the Cornell University Libraries.  Was she a chemist?

Biography:  Roald Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Zloczow, Poland.  Having survived the war, he came to the U. S. in 1949, and studied chemistry at Columbia and Harvard Universities (Ph.D. 1962). Since 1965 he has been at Cornell University, now as the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters. He has received many of the honors of his profession, including the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui).

"Applied theoretical chemistry" is the way Roald Hoffmann likes to characterize the particular blend of computations stimulated by experiment and the construction of generalized models, of frameworks for understanding, that is his contribution to chemistry.  The pedagogical perspective is very strong in his work.

Notable at the same time is his reaching out to the general public; he participated, for example, in the production of a television course in introductory chemistry titled "The World of Chemistry," shown widely since 1990. And, as a writer, Hoffmann has carved out a land between science, poetry, and philosophy, through many essays and three books, Chemistry Imagined with artist Vivian Torrence, The Same and Not the Same (translated into six languages) and Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition, with Shira Leibowitz Schmidt.

Hoffmann is also an accomplished poet and playwright.  He began writing poetry in the mid-1970s, eventually publishing the first of a number of collections, The Metamict State, in 1987, followed three years later by Gaps and Verges, then Memory Effects (1999), Soliton (2002), and most recently, in Spanish, Catalista. He has also co-written a play with fellow chemist Carl Djerassi, entitled Oxygen, which has been performed worldwide, translated into ten languages. A second play by Roald Hoffmann, Should’ve, had its initial workshop production in Edmonton, Canada in 2006.

Unadvertised, a monthly cabaret Roald runs at the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, “Entertaining Science,” has become the hot cheap ticket in NYC.

Topical Group Meeting, 5:00 PM

"Intellectual Property Law"

Map and Directions

Parking: Enter the campus at the intersection of Kenmore and Sheridan Road and bear to the left.  Parking is available at the parking deck next to Flanner Hall for a $6.00 change. Enter the garage at the entrance marked “Faculty, Students, Guests, Visitors.”  When leaving the garage, first purchase an exit parking ticket at the pay station machine located near the garage stairs and elevators.

Menu:

An excellent dinner will be in the nearby Simpson Living Center and is served cafeteria style. The cafeteria provides a large variety of items on an all-you- can-eat basis. A potion of the cafeteria will be reserved for ACS attendees. Dinner admission tickets are obtained at the ACS registration table in Flanner Hall for a flat charge of $10.00 per person. No discounted dinners for students, retirees or unemployed.

Dinner reservations are required and should be received in the Section Office via phone (847-647-8405), fax (847-647-8364), email (chicagoacs@ameritech.net), or website by noon on Tuesday, September 25. PLEASE HONOR YOUR RESERVATIONS. The Section must pay for all dinner orders. No-shows will be billed.