A perspective on organic chemistry: physical organic chemistry

A physical organic chemist wants to understand the detailed sequence of bond makings and bond breakings by which new or well-known reactions take place, i.e., the reaction mechanism, and to identify any metastable intermediates involved. The ultimate goal of such studies is to predict, and hope to control, chemical reactivity by determining how molecular structure and the immediate local environment affect a reaction of probative interest. Physical organic chemistry, in turn, provides structural insight, upon which others significantly depend for making new materials and for predicting and understanding new chemical and biochemical processes. I was fortunate in my own research to be able to study photocatalysis and photoinduced electron transfer as unifying themes that underlined our most significant work.