Faculty Collections
ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
Title
William J. le Noble Papers
Collection Number
UA 2162
OCLC Number
In-process
Creator
William J. le Noble (1928- )
Provenance
This collection was donated by William J. le Noble in April 2012.
Extent,Scope, and Content Note
The collection is comprised of one cubic feet of publications and related materials
created by William J. le Noble between 1958 and 2002. Subject coverage includes organic
chemistry and related teaching materials.
Arrangement and Processing Note
The papers have been arranged in the original order maintained by William J. le Noble.
The collection was processed by Kristen J. Nyitrayin April 2012. Updated April 2019.
Language
English
Restrictions on Access
The collection is open to researchers without restriction.
Rights and Permissions
Stony Brook University Libraries' consent to access as the physical owner of the collection
does not address copyright issues that may affect publication rights. It is the sole
responsibility of the user of Special Collections and University Archives materials
to investigate the copyright status of any given work and to seek and obtain permission
where needed prior to publication.
Citation
[Item], [Box], William J. le Noble Papers, Special Collections and University Archives,
Stony Brook University Libraries.
Historical Note
William Jacobus le Noble (1928- ) was born on July 19, 1928 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands,
where he spent his early years. He graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from
the Advanced Engineering School in Dordrecht in 1949. After emigrating in the same
year, he served in the U.S. Army in Korea until 1953. Subsequently he attended the
University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1957 with a thesis project supervised
by the late Professor G.W. Wheland. After a postdoctoral stint with the late Professor
N. Kornblum at Purdue, he joined the faculty at Stony Brook, which was then in its
third year of operation. He is now Professor Emeritus of Chemistry; his service to
the Department of Chemistry has included a term as chair, He is the author of 175
publications including several chapters, a graduate level text (Highlights of Organic
Chemistry), two articles invited by the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology ("Resonance"
and "Physical Organic Chemistry") and one by the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences ("Organic
Reaction Mechanisms").
His two principal research interests have been the use of pressure as a tool in mechanistic
investigations, and stereochemistry. He has served as Visiting Professor at the Universities
of Amsterdam, Groningen and Len in the Netherlands, of Oulu in Finland and of Oita
in Japan. He was awarded a Senior U.S. Scientist Award by the Humboldt Foundation
in 1985 , and a Senior Scientist Award by Mombusho (Japan Ministry of Education and
Science) in 1987. His colleagues in high-pressure chemistry both in the U.S. and abroad
honored him recently with a Special Issue of the journal High Pressure Chemistry.
He served as Senior Editor of the Journal of Organic Chemistry under Professor F.D.
Greene from 1977-1988.
B.S., 1949, Chemical Engineering, Advanced Technical School, Dordrecht, the Netherlands;
Ph.D., 1957, University of Chicago; Postdoctoral Research Associate, 1958, Purdue
University; author, Highlights of Organic Chemistry; Senior Editor, Journal of Organic
Chemistry, 1978-1989.
Area of scholarship: "Our research in stereochemistry is concerned with electronic
control of face selection. Whenever in an organic reaction a group or atom is added
to a trigonal carbon atom and conversely, one is eliminated from a tetragonal atom,
nature must decide at which face this addition or elimination will occur. Past studies
of the factors controlling the outcome have been complicated and rendered uncertain
by the fact that the probes used generally had sufficient conformational freedom to
leave the results in doubt; however, steric effects clearly do influence them. To
see the electronic factor, it is necessary not only to freeze out conformational flexibility
but also to render the two faces sterically equivalent. The probes used in our studies,
5-substituted 2-adamantylidene derivatives, have this unique combination of qualities."
Subjects
Chemistry, Organic.
Activation (Chemistry)
Nitration.
Entrophy.
INVENTORY
Box 1
Biographical information
Photograph of Dr. William J. le Noble
Bibliography
Correspondence and assorted reference files
To view a complete list of publication files, please click here.
Publications numbered 1 through 129
Box 2
Publications numbered 130 to 159
Box 3
Publications numbered 160 to 175
"Lecture Notes," 1969 to 1970 for the courses Chemistry 101 and Chemistry 102