The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1994 was awarded to George A. Olah "for his contribution to carbocation chemistry".
Born Oláh György
May 22, 1927
Budapest, Hungary
Died March 8, 2017 (aged 89)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Citizenship dual, Hungarian and American
Fields Chemistry
Institutions
Case Western Reserve University
University of Southern California
Alma mater Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Known for Carbocations via superacids
Notable awards
Tolman Award (1991)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1994)
ForMemRS (1997)[1]
Arthur C. Cope Award (2001)
Order of the Rising Sun (2003)
Priestley Medal (2005)
Hungarian Order of Pro Merit (2006)
Spouse Judith Lengyel (m. 1949)
Children 2
George Andrew Olah (born Oláh György; May 22, 1927 – March 8, 2017) was a Hungarian and American chemist. His research involved the generation and reactivity of carbocations via superacids. For this research, Olah was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994 "for his contribution to carbocation chemistry." He was also awarded the Priestley Medal, the highest honor granted by the American Chemical Society and F.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of the American Chemical Society in 1996.
Olah was born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 22, 1927, to Magda (Krasznai) and Gyula Oláh, a lawyer. After the high school of Budapesti Piarista Gimnazium (Scolopi fathers), he studied under organic chemist Géza Zemplén at the Technical University of Budapest, now the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, where he earned M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Chemical Engineering.[10] From 1949 through 1954, he taught at the school as a professor of organic chemistry. In the subsequent two years, from 1954–1956, he worked at the Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where he was Associate Scientific Director and Head of the Department of Organic
Website explaining carbocations: http://web.chem.ucla.edu/~harding/tutorials/cc.pdf
