I am deeply grateful to several individuals for stimulating discussions as well as multiple conceptual contributions to this Essay: Profs. T.-V. RajanBabu, Douglass F. Taber, F. Dean Toste, and Steven L. Buchwald and Drs. Mark A. Scialdone (DuPont) and Mark J. Burk (Genomatica). I also thank Drs. Valdus Jurkauskas and Luca Salvi for technical assistance with the manuscript and Dr. Susan Libby Nugent (the Gallup Organization) for assistance in vetting and wrangling the gold database that underlies Figure 1.
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Essay
“Black Swan Events” in Organic Synthesis†
Article first published online: 15 AUG 2012
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202348
Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Issue
Angewandte Chemie International Edition
Volume 51, Issue 36, pages 8936–8949, September 3, 2012
Additional Information
How to Cite
Nugent, W. A. (2012), “Black Swan Events” in Organic Synthesis . Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 51: 8936–8949. doi: 10.1002/anie.201202348
- †
Publication History
- Issue published online: 28 AUG 2012
- Article first published online: 15 AUG 2012
- Manuscript Received: 26 MAR 2012
Keywords:
- exploratory chemistry;
- homogeneous catalysis;
- ligand design;
- organic synthesis;
- transition metals
When a research area “goes viral”, the event typically occurs in conjunction with a major change in “conventional wisdom”. In retrospect, the literature often contains earlier hints that the original judgment was not correct. These antecedents are referred to as “Black Swan” events. The picture shows research on homogeneous gold catalysis “going viral”.