Sir Robert Robinson—Minor Prophet, a most senior referee, a story of darkness and light

Israel Agranat*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The story of the Tetrahedron Letters affair in 1973–1974 is described and lessons for Editors, Referees, and Authors are drawn from the TL affair and related correspondence of Sir Robert Robinson (Sir RR) (Nobel Laureate), a Minor Prophet. The TL affair centered at two related papers authored by Israel Agranat, et al. on reversible Friedel-Crafts acylations and acyl rearrangements. The first paper (A) was published in J. C. S. Chem. Comm. (1973); it was followed by the second paper (B), which contained a reference to A “in the press.” It was originally accepted for publication in TL, following a favorable review. However, a month later, it was rejected in view of the reviewer’s subsequent allegation of lack of novelty due to A. The TL Editor Professor Alan Roy Katritzky relied also on the opinion of one of the journal’s most senior referees, Sir Robert Robinson, the founder of Tetrahedron and Tetrahedron Letters and the Chairman of their Honorary Advisory Boards, who in 1973 was blind. The TL affair led to correspondences of Sir RR with Professor Ernst David Bergmann and with the Author. Paper B was published (after modifications) in 1974 in Synthetic Communications.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1347-1351
Number of pages5
JournalStructural Chemistry
Volume32
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Keywords

  • Communication
  • Confidential
  • Ernst Bergmann
  • Friedel-Crafts acylation
  • Novel
  • Referee
  • Reversibility

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Sir Robert Robinson—Minor Prophet, a most senior referee, a story of darkness and light'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this