TABLE OF CONTENTS The Tarbells' book contains a good account of the discovery of the triphenylmethyl radical by Moses Gomberg (1866 1947). Gomberg was a child immigrant to the USA from Russia, who worked his way through the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to a doctorate in chemistry in 1894. After a year of study with Victor Meyer at Heidelberg, he returned to Ann Arbor and started work that resulted in the serendipitous discovery of triphenylmethyl in 1900. An obituary notice [303] and a biographical memoir [304] for Gomberg are available. See also a review article [305] by Gomberg written in 1924.
The compound formed by the dimerization of triphenylmethyl was erroneously believed for almost seventy years to be hexaphenylethane and was only properly identified as an isomer of quinoid structure by spectroscopic studies in 1968. [306] McBride has examined in detail how the error persisted for such a long time. [307] The centenary of Gomberg's discovery in 1900 of the triphenylmethyl radical has stimulated some historical studies. Tidwell has written on The free radical century: Gomberg and beyond. [308] In addition to mentioning the main participants in the development of free radical chemistry during the first half of the century, he introduces several less important people whose contributions in the late 1920s and early 1930s tend to be overlooked. Tidwell also draws attention to the discussion of the Faraday Society in 1933 on Free Radicals [309] in which various pioneers, including Gomberg,...
