Alexander William WilliamsonBorn 1 May 1824; died 6 May 1904 at age 80. English chemist whose research on alcohols and ethers clarified organic molecular structure. He was the first to explain the action of a catalyst in terms of the formation of an intermediate compound. Williamson was the first to make 'mixed' ethers, with two different alkyl groups, by a method still known as the Williamson synthesis in which an alkoxide reacts with with an alkyl halide. In the early 1850's, he first noted and described reversible reactions such as those of alcohols and ethers in which products of a reaction may recombine to form the reactants). He named the "dynamic equilibrium" in the case where the rate of the forward reaction is the same as that of the reverse reaction, and all compounds in the process coexist. |
