MANSFIELD, PA—The Mansfield University Chemistry Club attended a lecture by Nobel Laurate Roald Hoffman held at Elmira College on September 23.
The lecture, entitled “Protochemistries Are a Bridge,” presented the superb chemistry done by people before there were professional chemists.
Examples included the pre-Inca peoples of South America plating gold onto copper, the vibrant blue-purple pigments the ancient Egyptians were using as paint, and the very expensive blue dye used by Romans and Middle-Eastern peoples to signify royalty that was obtained from a certain sea snail.
Hoffman shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kenichi Fukui. He has taught at Cornell University since 1965, now as the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus.
The lecture, held as part of the monthly meeting of the Corning Section of the American Chemical Society, was open to the public and attended by students from other local colleges and professional chemists from local industry.
To learn more about studying Chemistry at Mansfield, go to mansfield.edu/chemistry-physics/