Orbital interactions and long-range electron transfer

Abstract

Abstract Professor Houk and I are coevals and we embarked on our research careers at about the same time. In the beginning of the 1970s, both he and I were independently working on mechanistic aspects of pericyclic reactions, using a combination of experiment, simple perturbational MO theory and semi-empirical MO calculations. My published work in this area was of variable quality whereas Ken's was uniformly outstanding. I was due for sabbatical study in 1980. Although, by that time, I had begun my investigations into electron transfer, a story which is told below, I considered it daft not to spend 1980 with Ken, who was clearly on track to becoming one of the great American physical organic chemists. So I went to LSU in January, 1980, to become a member of “Houk's hordes”, as they were then affectionately called. That year was the most rewarding, most exciting, and happiest year of my professional career. We did great work together, with Nelson Rondan, solving all sorts of challenging problems concerning π -facial stereoselectivity, using John Pople's spanking new gaussian 80 program that actually located stationary points automatically, thereby banishing for all time that dreadful axial iterative method for optimising molecular geometries! Over the intervening years, Ken and I have kept up our friendship and we even occasionally collaborate on projects of mutual interest. Although my interests have diverged somewhat from Ken's, I always read his papers for, like Roald Hoffmann's papers, Ken's are not only of the highest quality but they are also elegantly written. I respect and admire Professor Houk, not only for his chemical brilliance, but also for his humanity – his generosity, his great sense of humour, his liberal views and his tolerance of other people's points of view. So, I am absolutely delighted to have been invited to contribute an article to this volume in honour of Professor Houk's 60th birthday.