Street, City, Country

250 Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, France

Who was there?

Joseph Achille Le Bel (1847–1930)

 

When did he live there?

1904–1930 [2,3]

 

What is it today?

Headquarter of the Société Chimique de France (SCF, French Chemical Society)

 

Original building?

Yes

 

Brief history of the person and the house

Joseph-Achille Le Bel lived in this house from 1904 to 1930 and donated it to the Société Chimique de France, the French Chemical Society (SCF, French Chemical Society), in 1930 [2]. Le Bel also had laboratories incorporated into the house for his research.

In 1892, he served as President of the Société Chimique de Paris [3]. The society was founded in 1857 by Jacques Arnaudon (1839–1893), Ernest Collinet, and Giuseppe Ubaldini, three passionate young chemists, who used to meet every week in a Parisian café to discuss the latest chemistry work. Joined by a few others, they founded the Société Chimique de Paris. In 1906, it changed name and became the Société Chimique de France (SCF) [4].

 

What is Joseph-Achille Le Bel known for?

He is best known for his work in stereochemistry and the Le Bel–Van ‘t Hoff rule.

Le Bel co-discovered the basic concepts of organic stereochemistry in 1874. He found that a compound with one asymmetric carbon atom (i.e., a carbon atom with four different substituents) can exist in two isomers that are mirror images of one another, not congruent, and are optically active. This breakthrough was achieved simultaneously and independently by Le Bel and Jacobus Henricus van ‘t Hoff, the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Both researchers proposed the hypothesis that the number of stereoisomers of an organic compound containing no internal planes of symmetry is 2n, where n is the number of asymmetric carbon atoms. This relationship is known as the Le Bel–Van ‘t Hoff rule.

 

References/Sources

[1] Catharina Goedecke, 90th Anniversary: Death of Joseph Achille Le Bel, ChemistryViews 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/chemv.202000076

[2] https://openplaques.org/plaques/3237

[3] Personal communication, SCF November 2024.

[4] A brief history of the SCF, SCF website (accessed December 12, 2024)

 

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