chemistry

Ray Freeman

Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman rather than just read about it. In short: Raymond Freeman FRS (6 January 1932 – 1 May 2022) was a British chemist and academic, who was a professor at Jesus College, Cambridge and made important contributions to NMR spectroscopy. Early life and education Freeman was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire on 6 January 1932.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Raymond Freeman FRS (6 January 1932 – 1 May 2022) was a British chemist and academic, who was a professor at Jesus College, Cambridge and made important contributions to NMR spectroscopy.

Early life and education Freeman was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire on 6 January 1932. He was educated at Nottingham High School in Nottingham, England where he won an Open Scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford in December 1949. At the instigation of Lincoln College, he deferred his admission to Oxford to complete his military service in the Royal Air Force as a radar instructor and reached the rank of acting corporal, un-paid. In October 1951 he returned to Oxford and began his studies in chemistry under the tutorship of Rex Richards working in research in Rex's group on NMR of the less-common nuclei (in particular 59Co). He earned a Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees.

Career Joining the magnetic resonance group of Anatole Abragam at Saclay, France in 1957, Freeman did postdoctoral research under the direction of an NMR pioneer Robert Pound who was on leave from Harvard University) on the super-regenerative oscillator. Freeman used the device to build a stable high-resolution NMR spectrometer.

Varian Associates, California After three years in the Basic Physics division of the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington in the United Kingdom, Freeman took leave of absence in 1961 to work on double irradiation techniques with Wes Anderson at Varian Associates in Palo Alto, California. The environment proved to be very stimulating and a year was extended to twelve. The family lived in California and three of the children are still West Coast residents. In addition to working on research at Varian on double-resonance, double-quantum effects, spin-lattice relaxation, and Fourier transformation, Freeman assisted in the development of new Varian NMR spectrometers (XL-100 and CFT-20).

Back to Oxford In 1973 Freeman returned to Oxford as a university lecturer and a Fellow of Magdalen College beginning his own research group focused on high-resolution NMR methodology. He received a Doctor of Science degree in 1975 and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. With his research students at Oxford, several publications on new NMR techniques were released including work on two-dimensional NMR. Freeman acknowledged that part of the work was triggered by the seminal suggestion of Jean Jeener at a meeting in Brussels.

A Handbook of Magnetic Resonance On a short sabbatical at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Freeman published "A Handbook of Magnetic Resonance" (translated into Japanese and Russian).

Cambridge In 1987 Freeman moved to the University of Cambridge to take up the Plummer chair of magnetic resonance and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College. He continued his research on NMR methodology there and wrote a second book, "Spin Choreography". Freeman took statutory retirement in 1999, but continued his research with a long-time colleague Eriks Kupce, and wrote his third book, "NMR in Chemistry and Medicine", published in 2003 and later translated into Russian.

Personal life and death In 1958 Freeman married Anne-Marie Périnet-Marquet (originally from Haute-Savoie, France) and they had five children. He died from bladder cancer at a hospice in Cambridge, on 1 May 2022, aged 90.

Awards and honours Freeman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1979. His nomination reads: Dr Freeman has been particularly concerned with the development of High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance since 1956. Over the years he has initiated very many of the techniques of high resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance which are now used routinely all over the world. He was responsible for the exploitation of double and triple resonance techniques for the analysis of high resolution NMR spectra and for the determination of relative signs of spin coupling constants in proton spectra. His two major papers on the theory of double resonance and on the theory of spin tickling form the basis of methods used universally today. He showed how C-13 and other weak resonances could be observed indirectly by double resonance methods and also demonstrated the use of double quantum transitions for the assignment of NMR spectra. He then published a series of elegant papers on spin-spin and spin-lattice relaxation in high resolution spectra, demonstrated some of the earliest uses of Fourier transform spectroscopy, and pioneered the methods of measuring spin-lattice relaxation times of C-13 spectra and their use for structural purposes. Dr Freeman's work is characterised by novelty and ingenuity expressed with economy and style. Freeman was also awarded the Royal Medal in 2002.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ray Freeman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman

In research: Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman 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: Ray Freeman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1932 births, 2022 deaths, Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ray Freeman in simple terms?

Raymond Freeman FRS (6 January 1932 – 1 May 2022) was a British chemist and academic, who was a professor at Jesus College, Cambridge and made important contributions to NMR spectroscopy. Early life and education Freeman was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire on 6 January 1932.

Why does Ray Freeman 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 Ray Freeman?

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 Ray Freeman.