Roald Hoffmann is a Polish-American chemist and Nobel laureate known for his contributions to the field of theoretical chemistry. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981, along with Kenichi Fukui, for their work on the theory of chemical reactions, specifically the concept of molecular orbital theory and its application in understanding chemical reactions. Hoffmann has a reputation for his ability to bridge the gap between theoretical chemistry and its practical applications.
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Roald Hoffmann developed the isolobal analogy, relating molecular fragments through their frontier orbitals. Comparable number, symmetry, shape, energy, and occupation of these orbitals can suggest related bonding patterns.
This connects inorganic and organic chemistry without claiming that equal total electron counts guarantee identical reactivity. The analogy concerns the orbitals available to make bonds.[ref]
Building Bridges Between Inorganic and Organic Chemistry (Nobel Lecture) by Roald Hoffmann. Nobel lecture: isolobal correspondence
Portrait of Roald Hoffmann
. Armin Kübelbeck. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.