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| English
organic chemist who specialized in the concepts, classification, and terminology
of theoretical organic chemistry. He explained the mechanisms of organic
reactions in terms of the behaviour of electrons in the molecules concerned. Ingold was born in London and studied at Southampton. He became professor at Leeds 1924, moving 1930 to University College, London. In 1926 Ingold put forward the concept of mesomerism, which allows a molecule to exist as a hybrid of a pair of equally possible structures. His ideas, first published in 1932, are still fundamental to understanding reaction mechanisms. They concerned the role of electrons in elimination and nucleophilic aliphatic substitution reactions, which he interpreted in terms of ionic organic species. His Structure and Mechanisms in Organic Chemistry 1953 is a classic reference book. |