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William Joseph Wiswesser (December 3, 1914 – December 17, 1989) was an American chemist best known as the creator of the Wiswesser line notation (WLN), which was an innovative way to represent chemical structures in a linear string of characters suitable for computer manipulation. He is also known for the Wiswesser rule, a mathematical formula that predicts the order of atomic orbitals in many-electron atoms.

Early life and education

Wiswesser was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Louis and Hattie (Flatt) Wiswesser in 1914. He attended Reading High School in Reading, and graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1936.

Career

Following graduation, he worked at Hercules, the Trojan Powder Company, and the Picatinny Arsenal. Wiswesser then was an instructor of chemistry in the Cooper Union's School of Engineering during the 1940s. In 1945, he published his paper describing a formula that correctly orders the subshells of atomic orbitals in the manner of the Aufbau principle, known as the Wiswesser rule. Following his time at Cooper Union, Wiswesser worked for Willson Products, where he was Director of Industrial Hygiene, followed by civilian employment by the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick and finally at the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA.

In 1949, Wiswesser first presented what is now known as the Wiswesser line notation, which was particularly well suited to molecular structure representation within the computing platforms and modalities available. This work, which was further developed and expanded on by him for many years, had a lasting impact on the field of chemical informatics.

Wiswesser was also interested in the history of chemistry and near the end of his life he made a special study of Josef Loschmidt's work, alone at first and then together with preeminent chemist Alfred Bader.

Honors and awards

In 1970 he was awarded the Department of the Army Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honour which can be given by the United States Army to a civilian, in recognition of his "Chemical Line-Formula Notation", the WLN. That same year, he was awarded an honorary doctorate at Lehigh University.

In 1975 he was awarded the Austin M. Patterson Award for chemical information science.

Wiswesser received the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information's Herman Skolnik Award in 1980, with a citation "For pioneering mathematical, physical, and chemical methods of punched-card and computer-stored representation of molecular structures, leading to the creation of the Wiswesser Line Notation (WLN) for concise storage and retrieval of chemical structures ...".

Death

At the end of his life he was working for the United States Department of Agriculture on weed science until his final illness, and he died on 17 December 1989, aged 75, in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, leaving a widow, Katherine, and a son, daughter and four grandchildren. His scientific papers were deposited at Lehigh University after his death.

References

1. ^ "William J. Wiswesser, 75, Distinguished Berks Chemist". The Morning Call. 19 December 1989. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
2. Topper, Robert. "CU Chemistry and Chemical Engineering History". Cooper Union School of Engineering. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
3. Wiswesser, William (July 1945). "The Periodic System and Atomic Structure I. An Elementary Physical Approach". Journal of Chemical Education. 22 (7): 314–322. Bibcode:1945JChEd..22..314W. doi:10.1021/ed022p314.
4. ^ Bader, Alfred (1998). "The Wiswesser-Loschmidt Connection". Bull. Hist. Chem. 22: 21. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
5. Gelberg, Alan (1990). "Obituary: William Joseph Wiswesser (1914-1989)". Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences. 30 (1): 1. doi:10.1021/ci00065a001. The same text was published as In Memoriam: William Joseph Wiswesser (1914-1989), Chemical Information Bulletin vol. 42, No. 1, Spring 1990.
6. Wiswesser, W.J. (1989). "Johann Josef Loschmidt (1821-1895): a forgotten genius. Benzene rings and much more in 1861". Aldrichimica Acta. 22 (1): 17.
7. "William Wiswesser receives US Army Department's Highest Civilian Citation". Reading Eagle. 3 May 1970. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
8. "Developer Of Chemical Shorthand Dies At 75". The Scientist. 19 February 1990. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
9. "The Patterson-Crane Award (co-sponsored with the Dayton Section)". Columbus Section of the American Chemical Society. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
10. "Herman Skolnik Award". American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
11. "Funds Donated for Lehigh Archive of Early Chemical Notation System". Connection. 3 (2). April 1999. Retrieved 13 January 2015.

• 1914 births
• 1989 deaths
• Cheminformatics
• 20th-century American chemists
• Lehigh University alumni
• People from Reading, Pennsylvania
• Cooper Union faculty