“Part of the charm of synthetic organic chemistry derives from the vastness of the intellectual landscape along several dimensions. First, there is the almost infinite variety and number of possible target structures that lurk in the darkness waiting to be made. Then, there is the vast body of organic reactions that serve to transform one substance into another, now so large in number as to be beyond credibility to a non-chemist. There is the staggering range of reagents, reaction conditions, catalysts, elements, and techniques that must be mobilized in order to tame these reactions for synthetic purposes. Finally, it seems that new information is being added to that landscape at a rate that exceeds the ability of a normal person to keep up with it. In such a troubled setting any author, or group of authors, must be regarded as heroic if through their efforts, the task of the synthetic chemist is eased.”

—  Elias James Corey

Foreword of Name Reactions in Heterocyclic Chemistry (2004) by Jie Jack Li

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American chemist 1928

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“In the mean time, synthetic organic methodology has experienced an explosive expansion, which is due to two fundamentally different types of developments: (i) theclassical reactionshave been modified to become regio-, diastereo-, and enantioselective, and to become catalytic (cf. organocatalysis). (ii) The—mostly catalytic—use of transition-metal derivatives has enriched organic synthesis withnew types of reactions(cf. metathesis), which can almost all be rendered enantioselective by employing chiral ligands on the metal centers. Many of the resulting procedures for carrying out certain transformations have turned out to be of broad scope and to be generally reliable, so that—for brevity—they were named after their inventor(s) in synthetic discussions, and that’s all about Name Reactions. It is, therefore, not surprising that several monographs on this subject have appeared and that new editions of books on Name Reactions are essential. (…)
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