Dr. Roald Hoffmann is a distinguished theoretical chemist whose life story embodies resilience and intellectual achievement. Born in Złoczów, Poland in 1937 as Roald Safran, he survived World War II and immigrated to the United States in 1949, where he pursued his passion for chemistry with remarkable determination. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1958 and completed his doctorate in chemistry at Harvard University in 1962 under the supervision of Nobel laureate William N. Lipscomb. Since 1965, Hoffmann has been affiliated with Cornell University, where he currently holds the title of Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus, having shaped generations of chemistry students through his dedicated teaching and mentorship.
Hoffmann's most significant contribution to science came through his collaboration with Robert Burns Woodward, resulting in the development of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules which provide a theoretical framework for predicting the course of chemical reactions based on orbital symmetry considerations. This groundbreaking work, published in their 1971 book The Conservation of Orbital Symmetry, established an important unifying principle in organic chemistry that has influenced both inorganic and organometallic chemistry as well as solid state physics. In 1963, he introduced the extended Hückel method, a molecular orbital theory that enables calculation of electronic structures of molecules, further expanding the theoretical tools available to chemists worldwide. For these theoretical contributions to understanding chemical reactions, Hoffmann shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kenichi Fukui, cementing his legacy as one of the most influential theoretical chemists of the twentieth century.
Beyond his technical contributions, Hoffmann has made remarkable efforts to bridge the sciences and humanities, demonstrating that scientific inquiry and artistic expression can profoundly enrich each other. He has authored numerous poetry collections including The Metamict State and Gaps and Verges along with philosophical essays exploring the nature of chemistry as both science and art. His commitment to public engagement is evident in his presentation of the television series The World of Chemistry shown widely since 1990 and his long-running Entertaining Science cabaret in New York City. As both a scientist and humanist, Hoffmann continues to explore the profound connections between chemical understanding and broader cultural contexts, inspiring future generations to approach scientific inquiry with both analytical rigor and creative imagination.
