chemistry

George M. Sheldrick

George M. Sheldrick is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand George M. Sheldrick rather than just read about it. In short: George Michael Sheldrick, FRS (17 November 1942 – 20 February 2025) was a British chemist who specialised in molecular structure determination. He was one of the most cited workers in the field, having over 280,000 citations as of 2020 and an h-index of 113.

Key takeaways

George M. Sheldrick belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect George M. Sheldrick to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of George M. Sheldrick from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

George Michael Sheldrick, FRS (17 November 1942 – 20 February 2025) was a British chemist who specialised in molecular structure determination. He was one of the most cited workers in the field, having over 280,000 citations as of 2020 and an h-index of 113. He was a professor at the University of Göttingen from 1978 until his retirement in 2011.

Early life Sheldrick was born on 17 November 1942 in Huddersfield, England. He was educated at Huddersfield New College, then an all-boys grammar school. He completed nine O-Levels, six A-Levels, and two S-Levels. At A-Level, he achieved a distinction (the highest grade) in chemistry, mathematics and physics. Sheldrick was awarded a Major Scholarship to study Natural Sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge. He specialised in chemistry in his final year. He graduated in 1963 with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He remained at the University of Cambridge to undertake postgraduate research under the supervision of Evelyn Ebsworth. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1966. The topic of his thesis was the investigation of inorganic hydrides using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and was titled "N.M.R. Studies of Inorganic Hydrides".

Academic career In 1966, Sheldrick was elected a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. During his time as an academic at the University of Cambridge, he also taught within the Faculty of Chemistry. He was a demonstrator from 1966 to 1971, and a lecturer from 1971 to 1978. Sheldrick joined the University of Göttingen in 1978. There, he was first Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, then later Professor of Structural Chemistry. In 2011, he retired from full-time academia and was appointed Niedersachsen Professor (IE Emeritus Professor).

Work Sheldrick dealt with molecular structure elucidation by X-ray diffraction. He was the lead developer of the SHELX program suite, which is freely available online. In 2011, a graphical user interface for SHELX refinements called ShelXle was released.

Personal life and death On 13 July 1968, Sheldrick married Katherine Elizabeth Herford. Together they had four children. He died on 20 February 2025, at the age of 82. His younger brother, William S. Sheldrick (1945–2015), was a professor of analytical chemistry at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany until his retirement in 2010.

Honours 1970 Meldola Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry 1978 Corday-Morgan Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry 1988 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 1999 Carl-Hermann Medal of the German Society for Crystallography 2001 Fellow of the Royal Society 2004 Max Perutz Prize of the European Crystallographic Association 2009 Gregori Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2011 Ewald Prize of the International Union of Crystallography 2024 George M. Sheldrick Prize The European Crystallographic Association awarded its first award in honour of George Sheldrick.

References

External links Homepage

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with George M. Sheldrick

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what George M. Sheldrick claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to George M. Sheldrick before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about George M. Sheldrick ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of George M. Sheldrick

In research: George M. Sheldrick appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses George M. Sheldrick in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: George M. Sheldrick is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1942 births, 2025 deaths, Academic staff of the University of Göttingen, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for George M. Sheldrick outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study George M. Sheldrick in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what George M. Sheldrick means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain George M. Sheldrick out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is George M. Sheldrick in simple terms?

Why does George M. Sheldrick matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study George M. Sheldrick?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on George M. Sheldrick.