The Liversidge Research Lectures: The Royal Society of NSW Series 1931–2000

Introduction: The Liversidge Research Lectures

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"Archibald Liversidge, who became the second Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sydney (his Chair was actually 'Chemistry and Mineralogy'), was a very important figure in the Australian scientific community in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was mainly through the initiative and drive of Liversidge that the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was established in 1885."

1: The Production of Zinc by Electrolysis of Zinc Sulphate Solutions (1931)

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First Liversidge research lecture delivered on 24th Sept., 1931, at Science House, Sydney, arranged by the Royal Society of New South Wales under the terms of the Liversidge bequest. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1931, 65, M1-M48.

"As recently as 1914 there was no electrolytic zinc industry. Its development has been truly remarkable. Its position to-day is an outstanding example of the application of rigid chemical control to large scale operations. The electrolytic zinc plant is really a laboratory on a large scale in which thousands of gallons, instead of litres, of solution are handled in tanks and pumps instead of beakers and pipettes.

"Prior to 1913 literally hundreds of experimenters attempted to recover zinc by hydrometallurgical processes which, in many cases, involved the electrolysis of a solution of either zinc sulphate or zinc chloride. Accounts of their experiments are distributed throughout the literature of many countries, more especially in patent records, but it was not until 1914 that the modern electrolytic zinc process or, indeed, any commercial process involving the electrolysis of zinc sulphate solutions, can be said to have been established."

2: The Function of Phosphates in Fermentation of Sugars (1933)

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Second Liversidge Research Lecture delivered to the Royal Society of New South Wales, November 8, 1933. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1933, 67, M1–M17.

"During recent years, evidence has been gradually accumulating that when sugars undergo degradation by biological means, phosphoric acid is an essential agent in the reactions which take place."

3: Organic Arsenicals in Peace and War (1940)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered on October 29th at Science House, Sydney, arranged by the Royal Society under the terms of the Liversidge bequest. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1940, 74, M1–M16.

"I propose, in the short time at my disposal, to treat the subject rather from an academic viewpoint and to review briefly some of the methods available for the preparation of organic derivatives of arsenic. At the same time I will use for illustrations compounds which have been of service to man, either as agents of destruction or the reverse."

"Today there are many thousands of organic arsenicals known, a fact to be attributed to the ease with which carbon-arsenic linkages are formed and also to the stability of such linkages. Once an organic arsenical is prepared, it can be subjected to many diverse types of reaction to yield fresh derivatives without severing the C-As bond. Yet in spite of this ease of formation and stability, the vast number of organic arsenicals are almost exclusively products of the laboratory."

4a: Chemistry of the Earth (1942a)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered on October 27th, 1942, at Science House, Sydney, arranged by the Royal Society under the terms of the Liversidge bequest. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1942, 76, 329–344.

"Few developments in science have made so vital a contribution to chemical theory as has the knowledge that has been acquired, since Laue's discovery of the diffraction of X-rays, as to the constitution of the crystalline state of matter. This is especially true of inorganic chemistry, dealing, as it does, with compounds existing for the most part in the solid state as ionic or homopolar aggregates, rather than as molecular units. In this [lecture], therefore, the relation between crystalline structure and chemical theory will be taken as the general underlying theme."

4b: The Imperfect Crystal (1942b)

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The second Liversidge Research Lecture by J.S. Anderson; delivered before the Royal Society of N.S.W. on August 19, 1942. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J.Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1942, 76, 345–358.

"In the formulation of our basic chemical theory, the study of gases and their generalised laws played, as every chemist and physicist recognises, a most significant part. During recent years we have acquired an entirely new insight into the constitution of the solid state of matter, which may well have a comparable effect in moulding our chemical outlook. This is especially true in the domain of inorganic chemistry, and the work of the Braggs and other pioneers in the field of crystal structure must be ranked, with Werner's theory, amongst the most important accessions to general chemical theory."

5: The Physics of Rubbing Surfaces (1944)

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Two Liversidge Research Lectures delivered on October 17 and 18, 1944, at the Chemistry Department, University of Sydney, arranged by the Royal Society under the terms of the Liversidge Bequest. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1944, 78, 187–219.

"In this lecture we shall be dealing with a very old and very unfashionable branch of natural science - friction - and we wish to discuss some of the physical processes that occur when two solids are rubbed together."

"We shall confine our attention to some of the physical processes that occur when one solid slides over another. There is a resistance to motion which we call friction. What is the mechanism of that frictional force, and from the point of view of a molecule sitting on the surface, what is really happening?"

6: Plant Products of New Zealand (1946)

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Two Liversidge Research Lectures delivered before the Royal Society of N.S.W., August 12th and 13th, 1946. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1946, 80, 151-177.

"I propose including a review of work already done on the plant products of New Zealand, with suggestions as to future work; where possible some correlation with the chemistry of the flora of New South Wales will be given."

"There is no question that the flora of New Zealand is unique and one of the most remarkable known. No less than 75% of the 1,800 species occur endemic to the country, and the peculiar geography of New Zealand has allowed for the existence of manifold types, tropical to sub-antarctic, sea-level to alpine, desert to rain-forest types. Just as New Zealand offers great scope for the botanist, it offers an almost unrivalled field to the chemist interested in the various constituents found in plants."

7: Some Recent Work on the Separation and Use of Stable Isotopes (1948)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of N.S.W., August 19th, 1948. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1948, 82, 183-195.

"There have been many outstanding achievements in science in the past ten to fifteen years, and I think that the development of methods for separating isotopes must come within this category, not only because of its immediate interest to chemistry, but also because a vast amount of important information has been gained by the use of the separated isotopes."

8: Energy Transactions in Homeothermic Animals (1950)

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The Liversidge Research Lecture delivered November 15th, 1950. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1950, 84, 169-183.

"...we shall, no doubt, occasionally catch a glimpse, however faint, of the general laws of energy exchange that operate in living material, and thus be encouraged to add to the pattern of knowledge that is already taking shape."

"I propose to recall for you some of the phenomena associated with the overall energy transactions that take place under conditions of relatively constant temperature in the tissues of homeothermic animals; to seek with you to learn something of the efficiency with which these proceed; and then to view our findings in the light of what is now known of the chemical reactions of intermediary metabolism that give rise to the free energy utilized in the process of living."

9: Electron Diffraction in the Chemistry of the Solid State (1952)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered to the Royal Society of New South Wales, July 17, 1952. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1952, 86, 38-54.

"Electron diffraction has been understood fairly completely, in a formal way at least, from a time shortly after the establishment of wave mechanics, but recent experimental advances have only now permitted some realization of its full potential in chemistry."

10: Chemical Structure and Biological Function of the Pyrrole Pigments and Enzymes (1954)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered to the Royal Society of New South Wales, July 15, 1954. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1954, 88, 114-135.

"It is the story of a long research adventure which I intend to put before you. Everyone of us, however, explores only a few corners of a continent, and a rough map of what is known today must precede the story. The field is that of the tetrapyrrole pigments and enzymes, full of intrinsic chemical interest, but still more fundamentally important for the physiologist and biologist. Structure, metabolism, function and their correlation will therefore receive attention."

11: Recent Advances in the Chemistry of the Aromatic Compounds (1956)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered to the Royal Society of New South Wales, July 12, 1956. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1956, 90, 87-99.

"The study of the aromatic compounds has never been seriously neglected, for it has not only posed many problems of academic and theoretical interest but, in addition, many such compounds are of great commercial importance."

"It is not inappropriate that the Liversidge Research Lecture should be concerned with this topic in 1956, for this is the 100th anniversary of the discovery the first synthetic dyestuff, mauveine, by the youthful W.H. Perkin."

12: Modern Structural Inorganic Chemistry (1958)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of N.S.W., 29th July, 1958. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1958, 92, 25-35.

"In the solid state chemistry is three-dimensional, and structural chemistry is concerned primarily with the arrangements of atoms, their motions relative to one another and the forces which exist between them. It deals with organization rather than with transient phenomena. Two ideas represent turning points in the history of chemistry, and it is significant that in each the third dimension was introduced."

13: Applications in Chemistry of Properties Involving Molecular Polarisability (1960)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, October 13th, 1960. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1961, 95, 1-11.

"As a young organic chemist in England during the late 1920's, I saw and heard a great deal of the then developing theoretical approaches to reactivity and reaction mechanism..."

"Much less was known of the "tautomeric" or "inductomeric" polarisability effects; accordingly, a few years before the last war, my wife and I decided to attempt their direct investigation. This necessitated the practical measurement of electric double refraction and thus brought us into contact with a physical property which, during our period in Australia, has been developed into stereochemical usefulness, and which is now beginning to be applied by others elsewhere in the world."

14: Nucleic Acids, Their Structure and Function (1962)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered on 19 June, 1962. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1962-3, 96, 39-46.

"The development of our knowledge of the nucleic acids over the last two decades affords almost a perfect example of how the parallel contributions of organic chemistry, physical chemistry, biochemistry, biology and genetics can contribute to the solution of a single problem."

15: Heterocyclic Chemistry, and Some Biological Overtones (1964)

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Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, June 9th, 1964. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1964-5, 98, 11-22.

"Because my deepest interest ever since school days, was to find out how drugs exerted their curative action, I studied biology alongside chemistry all through my undergraduate course. To-night I propose to describe some of the highlights of the research in which I became involved after completing my Ph.D. work in London and returning to Australia in 1937."

"In my thesis work, under the supervision of W. H. Linnell, I had synthesized a number of new polyaminoacridines but the reason why only some of them were antibacterial quite eluded us. It was later, while I was working in the Department of Organic Chemistry in the University of Sydney, that I resolved to simplify the problem by examining the monoaminoacridines."

16: Organic Metals? The Electrical Conductance of Organic Solids (1966)

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Liversidge Research Lecture reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1967-8, 101, 1-9.

"This paper discusses electrical conduction in organic solids, leaving aside the spectral and photo phenomena in which I have been greatly interested for a number of years and omitting also the organic superconductivity recently discussed by Little (1964). Let us ask: How nearly can the electrical conductivity of an organic material be made to approach values typical of metals?"

17: Where are the Electrons? (1968)

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Liversidge Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, July 17th, 1968. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1968-9, 102, 73-81.

"When chemists come to interpret their observations in terms of the atomic molecular theory of matter one of the first questions to be settled is: where are the electrons?"

"I propose to try to illustrate the current fight with ignorance and to do it at two levels. Firstly, I want to consider how much we know about the gross distribution of electrons when we merely try to assess the net charges that should be associated with each atom. Secondly, I want to consider to what extent we can distribute the atomic electron densities among the different atomic orbitals associated with each atomic nucleus."

18: Chemistry of Some Insect Secretions (1970)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 22nd October, 1970. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1970, 103, 109-118.

"A number of the secretions used by insects and other arthropods for defensive purposes, as venoms, and as chemical messengers in their patterns of social organization have been characterized."

"In the present lecture emphasis is placed on aspects of the chemistry of insect secretions that have interested us since 1952."

19: Chance and Design: An Historical Perspective of the Chemistry of Oral Contraceptives (1974)

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The 19th Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 15th August, 1974. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1974, 107, 100-113.

"The requirement of total synthesis of sex and cortical hormones is discussed in the historical context of evolution of ideas and techniques leading to biologically active analogues. In particular, the desire to make 18- and 19-norsteroids led to development of the technique of metal-ammonia reductions and eventually to the 19-norsteroid hormones used as oral contraceptives. This history is considered against a background of the role of chance and design in scientific research in general and pharmaceutical research in particular."

20: Coordination, Topology and Structure in Transition Metal Oxides (1976)

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The Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 15th July 1976. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1976, 109, 137-150.

"The role of defects in the real structure of transition metal oxides which exhibit gross departures from simple stoicheiometries† is reviewed. The classical notion of a randomized distribution of non-interacting point defects is no longer tenable being replaced by the emerging recognition that a high level of organization into discrete clusters or more extended assemblies of defects is an inherent feature of the real structure of defect solids. The concept of octahedral coordination of vacant oxygen sites, taken in conjunction with topological analysis, is shown to contribute considerable insight into the transformational and structural relationships between defect oxides of the fluorite type."

†Now usually spelled 'stoichiometries'.

21: Elegance in Molecular Design: The Copper Site of Photosynthetic Electron-Transfer Protein (1978)

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The Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 19th July, 1978. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1979, 112, 45-62.

"Plastocyanin is an intensely blue protein which is essential for photosynthesis in green leaves and in some algae. The blue colour is associated with the presence of a single copper atom in each molecule of the protein. In terms of the absorbance per copper atom, plastocyanin is about a hundred times as blue as 'normal' cupric compounds. In addition, the protein has an unusual electron spin resonance spectrum and an anomalously high redox potential. The combination of these properties occurs in some other copper-proteins but has not yet been mimicked in any model compound of low molecular weight."

"The recent X-ray crystal structure analysis of plastocyanin has revealed a molecule ideally suited to the biological function which it performs. The nature of the copper site is such as to produce the high redox potential which is required for electron-transfer between plastocyanin and its neighbours in the photosynthetic chain. The location of the copper site in the protein molecule provides at least two reasonable electron-transfer pathways. The exterior of the molecule has distinctive features which suggest that the protein interacts in specific ways with its redox partners and/or its environment."

22: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Polymer Studies (1980)

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The Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 19th June., 1980. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1980, 113, 69-80.

"13C nmr spectroscopy is now extensively used in both synthetic and biological polymer studies. Structural and dynamic properties of a polymer can be determined from the 13C nmr chemical shift and relaxation time parameters. Examples from both the synthetic and biological fields are presented together with descriptions of new techniques for the analysis of end groups and the determination of tacticity in synthetic polymers."

23: Molecular Crystals and Light: Chemical Reactions in Cages (1982)

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The Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 20th May 1982. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1982, 115, 61-7.

"The kinetics, mechanisms, and stereochemistry of solid state photochemical reactions are different in fundamental ways from reactions in fluids, and constitute a distinct set of problems. Molecules in crystals below the melting point are confined by intermolecular forces to sharply defined regions, or 'cages'. Reactions take place between molecules within such cages in positions and orientations known from crystal structure analysis or in positions related to the perfect crystal structure by dislocations or local disordering."

"New concepts are being developed to advance understanding in this field. The best known is that of 'topochemistry', which is that static lattice constraints restrict the products of a photochemical reaction to those preformed in the parent crystal. Also recent theory leads to the proposal that there may be impulsive molecular displacements following light absorption and lasting only a few picoseconds that bring neighbour molecules close together and promote chemical change or excimer formation. The theory of this concept of 'dynamical preformation' is described and possible examples discussed."

24: The Birth and Growth of Latex Particles (1984)

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Unfortunately, this is the only lecture for which a manuscript has not been published. The PDF includes biographical information on Professor Napper.

This Liversidge Research Lecture was delivered by Associate Professor D.H. Napper at a meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales on Wednesday 17 October, 1984, held at the University of New South Wales.

The author did not produce a manuscript of this Lecture for publication by the Society – nor was it published elsewhere.

25: Inorganic and Mineral Structures Reconsidered (1986)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, September 24th, 1986, at The University of Sydney. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1986, 119, 153-164.

"For 60 years or so the "Ionic Model" has been fundamental to solid state chemistry and mineralogy. It has been useful, but the ideas involved have become sacrosanct, even when they do not work! Quantum mechanical methods are becoming increasingly important and useful, but they lack the simple "physical" approach and, in any case, so far can only be applied to the simpler structures."

"An alternative approach, as simple, naive and "physical" as the ionic model, is successful where the latter succeeds and where it fails (e.g. in silicates). It can often be useful for simple and complicated structures; and it avoids the ionic/covalent dichotomy. Like the successful quantum methods, it sees no difference in principle between non-molecular structures and those of small molecules (another unhappy dichotomy). It emphasises that, as in organic chemistry, one "size" for an atom is insufficient for understanding structure; at the crudest level one needs a bonding size (for first nearest neighbour interactions) and a non-bonding size (for second and further neighbours)."

"It transpires that cations, far from being small in size and influence, often dominate crystal structure and behaviour."

26: High Frequency Transport Properties of Colloidal Dispersions (1988)

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Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 27th July, 1988. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1988, 121, 165-178.

"Colloidal dspersions occur in a wide range of scientific and technological situations and their proper characterisation is an important area of scientific activity. Almost all colloidal systems are composed of particles which carry a net electrical charge on their surfaces, unless special precautions are taken to remove that charge. Indeed, apart from particle size and shape, electrical charge is probably the most important property determining the behaviour in almost all situations.

"Both the static (equilibrium) and the kinetic charge are normally determined and the two values used to develop a picture of the charge distribution in the region around each particle. That information can then be used to calculate the electrostatic interactions between the particles and hence, to estimate many important aspects of behaviour.

"This paper describes some important new techniques for estimating the magnitude of the charge and its distribution in the neighbourhood of the surface. Important new insights are gained from the study of the conductance and dielectric behaviour at high frequencies (around 1 MHz) and by the study of the interaction of ultrasonic waves and electrical fields at the same frequencies."

27: Some Natural and Unnatural Indoles (1990)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, September 5th, 1990, at the University of New South Wales. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. N.S.W., 1990, 123, 1-13.

"New reactions of specially-activated indoles provide methods by which structures related to natural products can be produced. Various 4,6-dimethoxy-substituted indoles exhibit a variety of reactions, predominantly at C7, but others at C2 or C3 instead of C7. The general increase in nucleophilic character of these indoles allows the discovery of reactions which have not been observed for other indoles. These reactions include electrophilic substitution, and addition to aldehydes and ketones. Tri-indolyl macrocycles, pyrrolo[a]indoles, cyclopentano[b]indoles and indolocarbazoles can be produced. Furthermore, new ring-fused indoles can be prepared by intramolecular nitrone 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions between N1 and C2 or N1 and C7. In the latter case, similar structures can be achieved by aldol-type or organometallic reactions. The use of N-aroylindoles enables some known pyrrolophenanthridone alkaloids and some of their unknown analogs to be synthesized effectively."

28: Bonding and Non-Bonding (1992)

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Liversidge Research Lecture, delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 14 October, 1992. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1993, 126, 1354-143.

"Over the last 10 years our group has carried out two parallel experimental investigations in physical-organic chemistry. The first one dealt with the development of a new experimental parameter for the determination of the π-bond order of the carbon-carbon double bond and the utilisation of this new parameter in the determination of the ground-state electronic structures of some unsaturated systems."

"The second investigation dealt with the limitations of a previously proposed (Bott, Field and Sternhell, 1980) semi-quantitative treatment for predicting the severity (energy penalty) of repulsive non-bonded interactions from purely structural parameters."

29: Inorganic Chemistry: Frontiers and Future (1994)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New south Wales, 9th August, 1994. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1995, 128, 131-140.

"Inorganic chemistry - the chemistry of all elements - has turned up some real surprises in the last few years. Even elemental carbon is undergoing a revolution, literally. Molecules which are simply binary combinations of the elements, such as MxSy and MxCy, have been discovered. These are molecular fragments of compounds otherwise known only as non-molecular solids, and are totally unexpected and unpredictable: their structures are being explored by computational methods. The multiple "non-bonded" interactions between inorganic molecules in crystals are being recognised and understood, and can be deployed in crystal engineering. Highly evolved molecular biology reveals tantalising chemical possibilities beyond current laboratory capabilities, such as the mild reduction of the most recalcitrant molecule in chemistry, N2, by the enzyme nitrogenase. Insight into the mechanism of this enzyme comes from investigations of the clusters MxCy."

30: Trace Elements in Coal Science (1996)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales, 12th June, 1996. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1996, 129, 139-148.

"Trace elements are relevant to several aspects of coal science. Five topics are dealt with in detail, namely, the occurrence of trace elements, boron as an indicator of marine influence, boiler deposits, fluorine in coal, and the deposition of trace elements from the atmosphere. There is an increasing interest in the fate of trace elements from the combustion of coal for power production, especially environmental aspects of trace elements from the atmosphere and from ash disposal areas. Several suggestions for future work are outlined."

31: New Molecular Receptors for Small Molecules and Ions (1998)

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Liversidge Research Lecture delivered before The Royal Society of New South Wales at Sydney University, 1st July, 1998. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 1998, 131, 65-75.

"New macrocyclic and cage-like receptors have been synthesised. The host-guest complexation behaviour of these species with metal cations and, in one instance, organic guests has been investigated using a range of physical and computational techniques. Emphasis in these studies has been given to the development of systems showing selective host-guest complexation behaviour."

32: Funeral Arrangements for Plants: An Essay in Organic Geochemistry

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This paper is based on the Liversidge Research Lecture presented before the Royal Society of New South Wales by Professor Michael A. Wilson on 5th July, 2000. Reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of New South Wales from J. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 2000, 133, 71-85.

"Organic geochemistry literally is the dead end of science since it is concerned with the transformation of decaying plant material into humic substances, coal, petroleum and natural gas. The transformation process is primarily controlled by the possible degree of oxidation. Under reducing conditions coal and gas are formed and under oxidising conditions humic material is formed. Not surprisingly, the nature of the input vegetation also has an effect on the type of decomposed organic matter produced. One new finding for oxidising environments reported here, is the concept of a host-guest structures where smaller molecules reside within a framework of a macromolecular host primarily derived from lignin. The guests within the host cannot be removed by physical separation. The structure of the host can be determined by pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. Differential thermal analysis, calorimetry, methylation and gas chromatography mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance data can be used to identify the guests. Some of the guests are probably held by hydrogen bonding but others are true prisoners in that they are alkanes and hence have no binding sites."