Professor Emeritus Jack D. Dunitz, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, passed away on September 12, 2021.
Jack Dunitz was well-known for his use of crystal structure analysis as a tool for studying chemical problems. He worked on, e.g., chemical reaction paths, molecular motion, electron density distributions, polymorphism, phase transformations in solids, solid-state chemical reactions, the analysis of weak intermolecular interactions in condensed phases, virtual crystallography, and crystal structure prediction.
Jack David Dunitz studied chemistry at Glasgow University, UK, where he received his Ph.D. in 1947. He held research fellowships at Oxford University, UK, the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, USA, the U.S. National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA, and the Royal Institution, London, UK, before taking up a post as Professor of Chemical Crystallography at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in 1957. He remained there until his retirement in 1990.
Among other honors, Dunitz received the Paracelsus Prize from the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS) in 1986, the Gregori Aminoff Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1990, and the Buerger Award from the American Crystallographic Association in 1991. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Academia Europaea, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also was an Honorary Member of the Swiss Society of Crystallography, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Swiss Chemical Society.
Selected Publications
- Stereochemistry of reaction paths at carbonyl centres,
H. B. Bürgi, J. D. Dunitz, J. M. Lehn, G. Wipff,
Tetrahedron 1974, 30, 1563–1572.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-4020(01)90678-7 - Win some, lose some: enthalpy-entropy compensation in weak intermolecular interactions,
J. D. Dunitz,
Chem. Biol. 1995, 2, 709–712.
https://doi.org/10.1016/1074-5521(95)90097-7 - Organic Fluorine Hardly Ever Accepts Hydrogen Bonds,
J. D. Dunitz, R. Taylor,
Chem. Eur. J. 1997, 3, 89–98.
https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.19970030115 - Geometrical reaction coordinates. II. Nucleophilic addition to a carbonyl group,
H. B. Burgi, J. D. Dunitz, E. Shefter,
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 95, 5065–5067.
https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00796a058 - Disappearing Polymorphs,
J. D. Dunitz, J. Bernstein,
Acc. Chem. Res. 2002, 28, 193–200.
https://doi.org/10.1021/ar00052a005 - From crystal statics to chemical dynamics,
H. B. Buergi, J. D. Dunitz,
Acc. Chem. Res. 2002, 16, 153–161.
https://doi.org/10.1021/ar00089a002 - Molecular Recognition in Organic Crystals: Directed Intermolecular Bonds or Nonlocalized Bonding?,
J. D. Dunitz, A. Gavezzotti,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 1766–1787.
https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.200460157 - Intermolecular atom–atom bonds in crystals?,
J. D. Dunitz,
IUCrJ 2015, 2, 157–158.
https://doi.org/10.1107/S2052252515002006 - Phase transitions in molecular crystals: looking backwards, glancing sideways,
J. D. Dunitz,
Phys. Scr. 2016, 91, 112501.
https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-8949/91/11/112501
