William Wiswesser

William Joseph (Bill) Wiswesser (December 3, 1914 – December 17, 1989) was an American chemist best known as the creator of the Wiswesser line notation (WLN), an innovative way to represent chemical structures in a linear string of characters suitable for computer manipulation.[1]

He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to Louis and Hattie (Flatt) Wiswesser in 1914.[2]

He graduated from Lehigh University in 1936, and his papers were deposited there after his death.[3] He was awarded a doctorate there in 1970.[4]

In 1970 he was awarded the Department of the Army Award of Merit, 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.[5]

In 1975 he was awarded the Austin M. Patterson Award for chemical information science.[6]

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 ...".[7]

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.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Gelberg, Alan (1990). "Obituary: William Joseph Wiswesser (1914-1989)". Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science. 30 (1): 1. doi:10.1021/ci00065a001. Retrieved 13 January 2015. The same text was published as In Memoriam: William Joseph Wiswesser (1914-1989), Chemical Information Bulletin vol. 42, No. 1, Spring 1990.
  2. 1 2 "William J. Wiswesser, 75, Distinguished Berks Chemist". The Morning Call. 19 December 1989. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Funds Donated for Lehigh Archive of Early Chemical Notation System". Connection. Information Resources @ Lehigh University. 3 (2). April 1999. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "Developer Of Chemical Shorthand Dies At 75". The Scientist. 19 February 1990. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "William Wiswesser receives US Army Department's Highest Civilian Citation". Reading Eagle. 3 May 1970. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "The Patterson-Crane Award (co-sponsored with the Dayton Section)". Columbus Section of the American Chemical Society. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
  7. ↑ "Herman Skolnik Award". American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
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