ACA Elizabeth Armstrong Wood Prize

Roald Hoffmann, Frank H. T. Rhodes Prof. of Humane letters at Cornell U., has been named as the first recipient of the Elizabeth Armstrong Wood Prize from the ACA. The prize recognizes significant achievement in promoting a wider understanding of science. Hoffmann, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981 with Kenichi Fukui, is being honored for his deep, continuing interest in finding and articulating the connections between science and the arts. He has served as a great popularizer of science because he articulated the complexity of the relationships between chemistry and the rest of human experience. In 1993, the Smithsonian Inst. Press published Chemistry Imagined, a collaboration between Hoffmann and artist Vivian Torrence. In 1995, Columbia University Press published The Same and Not the Same, a book that focuses on the dualities underlying the fields of chemistry. He has also presented a series of television shows entitled "The World of Chemistry", widely aired on public stations.

Elizabeth Armstrong Wood was President of the ACA in 1957. The award is being named in her honor for the breadth and clarity of her writing that, in addition to papers in technical journals includes: Science from your Airplane Window (1968, 1975); Crystals and Light, an Introduction to Optical Crystallography (1964, 1977); Experiments with Crystals and Light, kit and accompanying booklet (1964 - translated into 6 languages) and Crystal Orientation Manual (1963).

Nominations of persons who have written books or articles that bring science, especially crystallography or the results of crystallographic studies, to the attention of a wider audience are sought. Nominations should include the titles of books, copies of articles, or other documentation and should be submitted to the ACA office by Oct. 1. Selection of the winner will be made by ACA Council.