Curiosities

Australian Born Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry – [Sir] John Warcup Cornforth – Signed manuscript letter

A very special letter (dated 1980) not only because of its truly distinguished author but here we have real content. Letters by Nobel Prize winners are not terribly rare but so often are perfunctory, relating to meetings, events or simply lunch. Here we have real, in depth, chemistry. The receiver, Dr Buckel, a distinguished scientist in his own right, may have been rather embarrassed on receipt. Cornforth believes that Buckel had tackled his work from completely the wrong route … indeed Cornforth is puzzled and goes on to set out in great detail his preferred option(s). In our view the content reveals the manner in which Cornforth visualises the solution to the problem from first principles then more complex mechanisms and solutions and alternative options as his thinking develops. The fact of his genius is plain in the writing. We love it.

The only Australian to date to have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Dear Dr Buckel

Thank you for your letter of 7 October. I was interested by your account of the work with glutaconate, but rather puzzled that you did not try the degradation to malate in the way you say I suggested. I have forgotten the details of our conversation during your very welcome visit, but certainly I would expect direct oxidation of glutaconate to malate by permanganate to be most unfavourable. This is because in glutaconate one has the combination of a double bond deactivated by conjunction with a carboxyl and a strongly activated methylene group. In these circumstances one would expect permanganate to attack the methylene group to a considerable and perhaps predominant extent, before the double bond was attacked. This is why it would be preferable to use a specific agent first to hydroxylate the double bond. Indeed, it should be possible to proceed in high yield to malic acid by making use of the fact that one of the hydroxyl groups will form a lactone. Thus: … chemical formulae.

He goes on …

The opening of the lactone ring is generally faster than the hydrolysis of an ester group (especially a benzoate) so that if you put the acetyl or benzoyl-lactone in hot water and neutralized the acidity as it appeared you should be able to get a clean ring-opening without other chemical changes. I really think you should try this – it seems so much simpler than the routes you have explored.

I will ask at Sittingbourne if they have any chiral acetate left – I brought none of it here. It will be ten years old now and will have lost nearly half its original radioactivity but a specimen tested for chirality about five years ago seemed not to have been racemized by radiolysis or by preservation in the form of aqueous potassium acetate. However, I wonder if this is the best way to make chiral 4-substituted glutamates and I wonder if you could do this from chirally tritiated malate using R-citrate synthetase and malate dehydrogenase, following this by treatment of the citrate with aconitase, isocitrate dehydrogenase etc. This should give you a totally chiral product whereas by starting from acetate you are at the mercy of isotope effects.

Cornforth goes on to offer his help in finding candidates for research, a task he may achieve on Thursday at The Royal Society where he is attending a discussion on glycolytic enzymes. There it is again proof The Royal Society …is the best Club in the World!

Sydney born Cornforth was totally deaf by the age of twenty but already recognised as and exceptional academic. He went to England, Oxford, along with a similarly gifted chemist Rita Harradence, who he later married. His relationship with Rita started over a broken Claisen flask .. Cornforth was a expert glassblower … something that was essential in the aspiring chemist in the 1930’s. Interestingly, there was no place in Australia where one could do a decent PhD in chemistry at that time. Naturally at Oxford Cornforth was in his element. He went on to be the first to synthesise cholesterol and had a hand in stabilising penicillin building on the work of fellow Australian Howard Florey. Cornforth was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1975 and coincidental with being made “Australian of the Year”. Cornforth also won the Davy Medal, Copley Medal, was Knighted and made Fellow of the Royal Society

Scientific gold – Manuscript letter with considerable scientific content by Australian Nobel Prize winner John Warcup Cornforth

$490.00

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Guide to Bruny Island History – B Davis

Described as a Second edition 190 albeit there had been a number of printings of the First the proceeds of which have gone traditionally to erect plaques at important historical sites around Bruny.

Not exclusively but essentially a history of the post colonial island and a special history its is too.

Card cover with an early French version of the map as decoration. 40 pages all up nicely illustrated from period photographs – they have come out better than often with this type of “local” production. A good coloured modern map to centre for perspective and bearings.

The third largest of the nearby Tasmanian islands and one held dear by those that have the life luxury to live there.

Bruny get the history then the experience … book your ferry today.

$35.00

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Aces Made Easy [Cheating at Bridge - Our Emphasis] – McCullough and Fogasse.

Published by Methuen, London in 1945, having first been published in 1934.

Small octavo, 134 pages, illustrated by Fogasse. I very good copy albeit with dust jacket chips.

We love this little book which is essentially all about how to cheat well at the card game Bridge. Bridge players on the whole are rather snooty self important individuals. It’s a game that can lead to divorce, and lost friends, so cheating on those so self consumed seams to Voyager to be rather fair.

The Author wrote a few books along these lines – another we like is tilted “Card-playing for Profit” .. another “What shall I tell my Partner?”.

Get over the moral dilemma and cheat at Bridge it’s much more fun than the game.

$30.00

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Precognition and Human Survival – Drayton Thomas.

Published by the Psychic Press, High Holborn London. No date but we suspect late 1940’s.

We cannot find any earlier versions of this work by the late 19thC Reverend Drayton Thomas who penned a number of intriguing books through Fowler and Wells such as Human Magnetism and the simply put Brain and Mind.

Octavo, 115 pages, super deep red dust jacket over lime green cloth covered boards, titling on jacket repeated on boards. A very good if not better copy.

“If a man should die shall he live again”. We are told that the book is the outcome of thirty years extensive research into the study of trance mediumship with the gifted sensitive Mrs Osborne Leonard. No effort is spared to provide satisfactory evidence … of many kinds. A stenographer was employed … well the expense spared.

Drayton Thomas – Precognition Proven.

$40.00

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Researches in The Phenomena of Spiritualism – William Crookes FRS. [Additions Sir Arthur Conan Doyle] – 1926

Title continues – Together with a portion of his Presidential address given before the British Association, 1898; and An Appendix by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Published both Manchester – the Two Worlds Publishing Co and London – The Psychic Bookshop, Victoria Street in 1926.

Octavo, 144 pages plus index and publishers catalogue. Frontispiece image of Crookes, numerous illustrations throughout explaining the scientific goings on. Some foxing [spongy paper] and age marks to plain covers – but a scarce extremely interesting work by one of the greatest scientific minds of all time.

Impossible to summarise Crookes’ achievements as an experimental chemist and physicist. Pioneered modern spectroscopy through his invention of the Crookes tube, discovered the element Thallium, contributed to the filling out [reorganisation] of the Periodic Table re the inert gases. A wealthy man who had a great business brain and combined these talents to fund his own research. In later years a whole, very large, floor of his Kensington Residence was a series of private laboratories and scientific library. Received the Nobel Prize in 1907 and many others achieved theirs through his work.

So, Crookes was interested in forces and formed the concept of plasma being the fourth state of nature. His interest in spiritualism and spiritual forces was a serious matter – he was President of the relevant Society at one time. This book summarises earlier publications of his views and experiments – and includes a chapter from his friend and fellow spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on an “Independent Testimony as to the mediumship of Florence Cook”.

Crookes’ chapter headings are a useful guide … Spiritualism Viewed by the Light of Modern Science; Experimental Investigation of a New Force; Some Further Experiments on Psychic Force; Miss Florence Cooks Mediumship; Spirit-Forms; the Last of Katie King etc.

Sir William Crookes one of the worlds great experimental scientists and the Spirit Forces.

$70.00

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The Passenger Pigeon – by Joseph Quinn.

No date comb bound copied item published circa 1990, see below. This was its original form – self published by the author.

Subtitled “A Boys Story” but not a story for Boys, in fact a compilation of the writings of the author, many of them, published in Bird World … and all about the demise of the Passenger Pigeon.

We learn that the last pigeon a female was given the name of Martha, after George Washington’s wife … the second last Passenger Pigeon, her brother, named George … naturally. We like this unusual work not just for its obvious rarity but the love of the writer for his subject. The Boys story is a reference to him finding his childhood scribbles about the subject matter.

96 pages in all, some images from the magazine that have not copied too well. Cream card covers.

A total of 20 separate articles, all of some length, published variously between 1982 and 1987.

Inserted on posh faux vellum paper is a poem written by the author in honour of the sadly retired bird; rather well penned and definitely moving.

Joseph Quinn – his life’s work on the Passenger Pigeon all in one place.

$40.00

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Australian Born Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry – [Sir] John Warcup Cornforth – Signed manuscript letter

Guide to Bruny Island History – B Davis

Aces Made Easy [Cheating at Bridge - Our Emphasis] – McCullough and Fogasse.

Precognition and Human Survival – Drayton Thomas.

Researches in The Phenomena of Spiritualism – William Crookes FRS. [Additions Sir Arthur Conan Doyle] – 1926

The Passenger Pigeon – by Joseph Quinn.

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