William Joseph Wiswesser

William Joseph Wiswesser (1914-1989) was an American chemist.

Life

William Joseph Wiswesser was born on December 3, 1914 in Reading, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a BS degree in chemistry in 1936. He worked as a Research chemist, at the Hercules Powder Co. 1936-39; then as Assistant research director, at the Trojan Powder Co. 1939-42. Wiswesser was an instructor of chemistry in the Cooper Union's School of Engineering, 1942-45.

Wiswesser next worked for Willson Products, Inc., in Reading, PA, 1945-63, 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. He died on Decemeber 17, 1989.

Contributions

In 1945, he published his paper describing a formula that correctly orders the subshells of atomic orbitals in the manner of the Aufbau principle, also known as the Wiswesser rule.[1]

In 1949, Wiswesser first presented what is now known as the Wiswesser line notation [2], which was the first line notation capable of precisely describing complex molecules and 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. It was adopted by the Institute for Scientific Information for indexing the Chemical Structure Index and by many pharmaceutical companies.

Publications

"Conversion of Wiswesser notation to a connectivity matrix for organic compounds." With others. Journal of Chemical Documentation 7, no. 4 (1967): 200-204.
"107 years of line-formula notations (1861-1968)." Journal of Chemical Documentation 8, no 3 (1968): 146-150.
Pesticide index. With others. 5th ed. College Park, MD: Entomological Society of America, ©1976.
"How the WLN began in 1949 and how it might be in 1999." Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences 22, no 2 (1982): 88-93.
"Historic development of chemical notations." Journal of chemical information and computer sciences 25, no 3 (1985): 258-263.

Offices

Wiswesser was editor of Chemical World Index Key News and etablished the Chemical Notation Association.

Awards

American Chemical Society. Skolnik Award, 1980.
US Army. Award of Merit.
Lehigh University. Honorary degree.

Papers

Lehigh University Libraries, Mart Science and Engineering Library, Bethlehem, PA. 3 collections: MS 0119: William J. Wiswesser and the Wiswesser Line-Notation Collection II; SC LVF W816; and SC MS 0374 Correspondence on Wiswesser Line Notation [5]