Ferrocene: Ironclad History or Rashomon Tale?
What really happened? To recount a pivotal 20th century chemical discovery, the assignment of its structure to ferrocene, ain't easy! One might have thought that telling the story would be straightforward, from published papers and correspondence with some of their authors. Not so. One emerges with a good bit of sympathy for historians of science-who did just what and why is pretty hard to determine, even when less than fifty years have elapsed.
Laszlo
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Laboratoire de Chimie, Ecole Polytechnique 91128 Palaiseau Cédex (France).
Hoffmann
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