Oxygen is the most well-known (if not the only) dramatic play in which Chemistry takes center stage. It was written ten years ago to commemorate the centenary of the Nobel Prizes. In the plot, the committee that awards these prizes considers granting one retroactively to the author or authors of a discovery made before 1901. The works of Amedeo Avogadro, Jöns Jacob Berzelius, and others are considered, but in the end, the decision is made to recognize the discovery of oxygen. The problem is that it is unclear who deserves the credit—whether it is the Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–86), the English clergyman Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), or the French chemist and tax collector Antoine Laurent Lavoisier—since all three contributed to this achievement. The action continuously jumps between the present day and the 1770s…
One person who we believe is not mentioned in this play is our own Juan Manuel de Aréjula (Córdoba, 1755 – London, 1830), a professor at the College of Surgery in Cádiz who introduced Lavoisier’s ideas and nomenclature to Spain. However, he disagreed with the father of modern chemistry on certain specific points. For instance, he criticized Lavoisier for naming oxygen as such—meaning “acid generator”—because not all acids contain this element, as demonstrated by muriatic acid (HCl). Aréjula instead proposed the name arjícayo («burning principle»), which he felt was more in line with its properties.
As one critic has noted, Oxygen presents
the human side of the professional scientist, the personal conflicts they must face in their pursuit of knowledge, personal recognition, and financial gain.
It is not common for science to make its way onto the stage. Aside from this play, other works with scientific themes include Galileo Galilei by Bertolt Brecht, The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and The Oppenheimer Case by Heinar Kipphardt.
The Authors
Roald Hoffmann is an American theoretical chemist and university professor born in Poland in 1937. He won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Kenichi Fukui for their studies on the behavior of molecular orbitals in chemical reactions. He also developed computational tools such as the Extended Hückel Method and, together with Robert Burns Woodward, formulated the Woodward-Hoffmann rules to predict the products of pericyclic reactions based on orbital symmetry properties. They discovered that the mechanisms of many reactions were determined, above all else, by the preservation of a certain symmetry in the interacting orbitals (the theory of molecular orbital symmetry conservation).
Carl Djerassi, born in Vienna in 1923, is best known for his contribution to the development of the birth control pill. He was instrumental (along with Mexican chemist Luis Miramontes and Hungarian-Mexican George Rosenkranz) in the discovery of norethindrone. He also devised a rapid method for obtaining cortisone and developed spectroscopic techniques such as optical rotatory dispersion and circular dichroism. In 1978, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry.
Djerassi’s life has also had its share of sorrow. His only daughter, Pamela, an artist, tragically took her own life in the estate he purchased with the money earned from his patents. Her body was found four days later under unusual circumstances. In her memory, Djerassi built an artists’ residency on the property and, in recent years, dedicated himself to supporting the arts.
Literary pursuits
Both Hoffmann and Djerassi have literary pursuits, particularly Djerassi, who has written poetry, three autobiographies, short stories, nine plays, and five novels—at least four of which have been translated into Spanish: Cantor’s Dilemma (about professor-student relationships), Bourbaki’s Gambit (about scientists’ desire for recognition), Menachem’s Seed (which deals with science policy), and Marx, Deceased.
As for Hoffmann, he writes poetry and has published collections such as The Metamict State and Gaps and Verges.
