Stephen S. Shohet '56 yesterday won the Martius Yellow chemistry experiment prize in a little over two hours and 24 minutes, missing by just five minutes the record time set four days ago by his Chemistry 20 professor.
Shohet's time set a new student record.
"Quite an achievement," was the reaction of Louis F. Fieser, Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry, who directed the contest. Fieser's best time for the experiment is two hours and 19 minutes.
After successfully completing his seven synthesized products, Shohet said that he owed most of the credit for his fast time to the short-cuts and hints offered to the class by Fieser, who has done the experiment several times. Fieser's products, Shohet also pointed out, were far better than his own.
"I've been studying this experiment for 30 days," Shohet admitted. His principal time-saving device was to use half quantities of reactants which are easy to manipulate.
Martins Yellow itself is just the first of the seven products in the experiment, from which most of the others are directly or indirectly derived. It is used as both a dye and moth-proofing agent.
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