Norman Allinger

Norman "Lou" Allinger (6 April 1928 – 8 July 2020)^[2] was an American organic and computational chemist and Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens.

Lou Allinger was the elder of two children of Norman Clark Allinger (a bank employee) and Florence Helen (née Young). He was born in Alameda, California. His mother died, aged 75, on 3 January 1982.^[3] His father died on 3 July 1983, aged 82.^[4]

“From the age of nine on he was always employed in some fashion, first at the age of nine selling magazines and newspapers, then later as an ice-man, a part-time mail carrier, an apricot-picker, a butcher’s apprentice, and a warehouseman, loading tin cans onto railway cars”.^[5]

Allinger always had an interest in science, starting with astronomy at age 9 and pursuing that hobby with friends for many years, including his college years when he assembled a 6-inch Newtonian reflector using lenses he had ground himself. He began chemistry as a hobby around 10 or 11 and won a Boy Scout merit badge in the subject at age 13.^[6] Aged 17, Allinger was experimenting with a highly dangerous mixture of magnesium and red phosphorus with three teenage friends in his bedroom at home. It resulted in an explosion which severely injured one friend. Lou escaped with "multiple cuts about the face and upper body".^[7][8]

Allinger attended Alameda High School and then, aged 18, he enlisted in the US Army,^[9] and was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska. After his term of enlistment Allinger attended the University of California, Berkeley, from where he graduated with a BS in chemistry in 1951.

For his PhD he moved to University of California, Los Angeles, to work with Donald J. Cram. He was awarded the degree in 1954. Allinger then crossed the country to Harvard, where he worked with Paul Bartlett.

In 1956 Allinger joined the faculty of Wayne State University, becoming a full professor of chemistry in 1960. After thirteen years in Detroit he moved to the University of Georgia as Research Professor. Allinger became the founding editor of the Journal of Computational Chemistry, the first issue of which appeared in 1980.^[10][11]

“Professor Allinger is honored for his pioneering work in computational chemistry, his seminal contributions to the development of the molecular mechanics series of force fields, their widespread application to the fundamental understanding of molecular structure and energetics, and their implementation as a significant tool for practicing chemists”.^[5] He was the senior author of the MM2, MM3, and MM4 molecular mechanics software packages.^[12]

Allinger published more than 360 papers in his career.^[13]