Influence On Lab Research Date: December 7, 1992
For the scientists who won this year's Nobel prizes in chemistry and in physiology or medicine, a commanding citation record, as determined by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information, was a clear indication that they were in the running for this most coveted award. The prize in physics, however, went to a French physicist at CERN whose citation history, although impressive, has not been nearly as meteoric as the other recipients.
The chemistry prize was awarded to California Institute of Technology's Rudolph A. Marcus for his work in divining the mechanisms of electron-transfer reactions. His first major paper on the topic was published in 1956, with refinements and extensions added over the next nine years.
This seminal paper, entitled "Theory of oxidation-reduction reactions involving electron-transfer" (R.A. Marcus, Journal of Chemical Physics, 24:966, 1956), has garnered more than 1,100 citations since its appearance, ...
