Hans-Werner Wanzlick (1917-1988) was a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

. A Professor of chemistry at

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

he is notable for work on

persistent carbene A persistent carbene (also known as stable carbene) is an organic molecule whose natural resonance structure has a carbon atom with octet rule, incomplete octet (a carbene), but does not exhibit the tremendous instability typically associated with ...

s and for proposing the Wanzlick equilibrium between saturated imidazolin-2-ylidenes and their dimers — which he called "''das doppelte Lottchen''", after a 1949 novel by

Erich Kästner Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including ''Emil and the Detectives'' and '' Lisa an ...

about a pair of mischievous twins. Anthony J. Arduengo, III (1999) ''Looking for Stable Carbenes: The Difficulty in Starting Anew''. Accounts of Chemical Research, volume 32, number 11, pages 913–921.

References

* Hans-Werner Wanzlick (1958), letter to

Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling ( ; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist and peace activist. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. ''New Scientist'' called him one of the 20 gre ...

(in German). Linus Pauling's Correspondence, item #444.6. Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin 1917 births 1988 deaths 20th-century German chemists {{chemist-stub