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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 8h

Ooh, looking back at the Nobel nominations database, which now goes up to 1974, John Goodenough was first nominated *in 1974* - before he'd even made a battery, and 44 years before he won it....

Reposted by Neil Withers

Stuart Batten @sbattenresearch.bsky.social · 10h

Just a little humble brag. Here's me getting my PhD with my supervisors - Bernard Hoskins and newly minted #NobelPrize Laureate Richard Robson. So thrilled for Richard, and thinking also of Bernard tonight (who passed away many years ago but was a crucial collaborator of Richard's). #Chemsky #ozchem

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 11h

Come on, spill the beans!!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 11h

Here's your mission: to find out who Robson will be cheering for in the Ashes!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 11h

Can't wait to see the write-up of the MOF/[porous] coordination polymer/whatever nomenclature debate on the BBC!!!

Screenshot of text: However, while the term ‘coordination polymer’ had been in use since 1916,25 no established definition of this field existed at the time. Therefore, different terminology was being used to describe
similar structures while the area matured. For example, ‘infinite polymeric frameworks’, ‘coordination networks’, or ‘network structures’ were used in addition to coordination polymer. The
wildly popular term ‘metal–organic framework’ and its abbreviation ‘MOF’ appeared in the second half of the 1990s,21,26 while the alternative phrase ‘porous coordination polymer’ (‘PCP’) was
introduced in the early 2000s.27 For clarity, the currently recommended terminology from IUPAC
distinguishes the following structures:28 a coordination polymer is ‘A coordination compound
with repeating coordination entities extending in 1, 2, or 3 dimensions.’; a coordination network
is ‘A coordination compound extending, through repeating coordination entities, in 1 dimension,
but with cross-links between two or more individual chains, loops, or spiro-links, or a coordination compound extending through repeating coordination entities in 2 or 3 dimensions.’; and a
metal–organic framework is ‘A metal–organic framework, abbreviated to MOF, is a coordination
network with organic ligands containing potential voids.’ Within this classification system, MOFs
constitute a subset of coordination networks, which in turn constitute a subset of the overall group
of coordination polymers.

Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 11h

Thank you, I've just been reading it!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 11h

I always say that although the Nobel gets criticised it is definitely good for one thing: getting some proper chemistry* in front of people's eyeballs, once a year.

So it's great to see this real in-depth reporting from the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Oh.

*and biology

A screenshot of a very short news story: "The Nobel prize in chemistry 2025 has been awarded to three scientists for developing revolutionary porous materials for applications ranging from gas storage to drug delivery.

Susumu Kitagawa, at Kyoto University, Richard Robson, at the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi, at the University of California, Berkeley, share the 11m Swedish kronor (about £871,400) prize announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

The trio were honoured “for the development of metal-organic frameworks”."

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

I didn't realise Robson was from Yorkshire! Just 12 miles (as the crow files) from where Geoffrey Wilkinson was born...

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Reposted by Neil Withers

Jamie Gould @jamieagould.bsky.social · 12h

Another person who would surely have been in contention is Gérard Férey, who sadly passed away in 2017. His MIL-53 and MIL-101 structures continue to wonder and show new applications.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

Always good to remember that the T in BET adsorption is Edward Teller, 'father of the H bomb'

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

In all seriousness, I've long been impressed by how MOFs bring together so many different bits of chemistry - a well deserved prize!

Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

Ah, but is it [organic, solid state, coordination, physical] chemistry?

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

Ah, but is it [organic, solid state, coordination, physical] chemistry?

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

So what meeting has Kitagawa got to go to?? Hopefully champagne is involved!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12h

I predict a lot of happy #OzChem ists

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13h

MOFs in a box

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13h

It's MOFs!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13h

What's in the box?? #ChemNobel #ChemSky

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Reposted by Neil Withers

Patrick Walter @patdwalter.bsky.social · 14h

Morning all. An exciting day in the chemistry calendar. The #NobelPrize in chemistry will be announced in a little over an hour. We're keeping track of all the developments as they happen at Chemistry World #chemnobel www.chemistryworld.com/news/the-202...

The 2025 Nobel prize in chemistry as it happens – live

Join us as we provide analysis and commentary in the run up to the announcement of the biggest prize in chemistry

www.chemistryworld.com

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 1d

Hmm, looking at the data, the citations are a bit low, but not super-low - the median number of citations for a physics Nobel winning paper is 495
www.chemistryworld.com/nobel-prize/...

The data behind the Nobel prizes

We've looked at over 100 years of data behind who and what wins the Nobel prize

www.chemistryworld.com

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 1d

It's a lot less than Clarke's 2008 Nature review on superconducting quantum bits with 1706 citations [understandable]

Or his 1979 Geophysics paper 'Magnetotellurics with a remote magnetic reference' with 766 - more surprising (to me at least!)

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 1d

The laureates' 'prize-earning' papers in Phys Rev Lett, Phys Rev B from 1985 + 1987 have 276, 342 and 518 citations [Scopus] - low for Nobel-winning work, maybe?
[1/2]

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 1d

Electrons go wheeee

In a normal conductor, the electrons jostle with each other and with the material. When a material becomes a superconductor, the electrons join up as pairs, Cooper pairs, and form a current where there is no resistance. The gap in the illustration marks the Josephson junction. Cooper pairs can behave as if they were all a single particle that fills the entire electrical circuit. Quantum mechanics describes this collective state using a shared wave function. The properties of this wave function play the leading role in the laureates’ experiment. ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 1d

It's a good day for Johns in California! #PhysicsNobelPrize

Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 8d

Sounds like en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wotcher

en.wiktionary.org

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 14d

Well that's perfectly clear.

WTF??

Section of text with the following highlighted: "An English teacher took me aside and drew a rectangle on a piece of paper, placed a shooting arrow on each corner of the rectangle, plus one halfway along the horizontal top line, and a final arrow, in the same position, down below."

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