Benzene's Ring Structure- Kekule Dewar

  Benzene's Ring Structure

In 1865, August Kekulé presented a

paper at the Academie des Sciences

in Paris suggesting a cyclic structure

for benzene, the inspiration for which

he ascribed to a dream. However,

was Kekulé the fi rst to suggest that

benzene was cyclic? Some believe

not and credit an Austrian school-

teacher, Josef Loschmidt, with the

fi rst depiction of cyclic benzene

structures. In 1861, 4 years before

Kekulé’s ‘dream’, Loschmidt pub-

lished a book in which he repre-

sented benzene as a set of rings. It is

not certain whether Loschmidt or

Kekulé—or even a Scot named Archibald Couper—got it right first.