Abstract
During the XIXth century, France has been the theater of many discoveries in stereochemistry thanks to prestigious physicists, chemists, and crystallographers. Among them, Louis Pasteur is certainly the father of molecular chirality (the so‐called molecular dissymmetry), and because of the exceptionally favored conditions of his famous discovery on the resolution of tartrates, his findings have often been attributed to serendipity. But let us not forget that “in the fields of observation, chance only favors the prepared minds.”
Highlights
The discovery is prominent, but the fact that Pasteur made this finding only 8 months after obtaining his two PhD degrees* on a topic that was thoroughly investigated by many of his contemporary scientists is striking
Louis Pasteur is certainly the father of molecular chirality, and because of the exceptionally favored conditions of his famous discovery on the resolution of tartrates, his findings have often been attributed to serendipity
Louis Pasteur was a genius in the sense that his numerous researches always started from everyday life observations and from a question of applied interest from which he took the opportunity to develop very fundamental science and understand general phenomena that changed the world and are still today of prime importance
Summary
The discovery is prominent, but the fact that Pasteur made this finding only 8 months after obtaining his two PhD degrees* on a topic that was thoroughly investigated by many of his contemporary scientists is striking.
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