Herbert C. Brown

No, the Wittig reaction is associated with Georg Wittig, who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Herbert C. Brown. Brown's Nobel-recognized work centered on boron-containing compounds and hydroboration chemistry.

Brown is best known for hydroboration and organoborane chemistry, which gave chemists practical ways to transform alkenes into alcohols and build carbon bonds. His work made boranes standard reagents in synthesis.

He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Georg Wittig for developing boron and phosphorus reagents used in organic synthesis. Brown's part focused on organoboranes, while Wittig's focused on phosphorus ylides.

Brown spent much of his career at Purdue University in Indiana. He was born in 1912 and died in 2004, after a long career that made Purdue a major center for boron chemistry.