chemistry

Ronald Gillespie

Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie rather than just read about it. In short: Ronald James Gillespie, (August 21, 1924 – February 26, 2021) was a British chemist specializing in the field of molecular geometry, who arrived in Canada after accepting an offer that included his own laboratory with new equipment, which post-World War II Britain could not provide. He was responsible for establishing inorganic chemistry education in Canada.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Ronald James Gillespie, (August 21, 1924 – February 26, 2021) was a British chemist specializing in the field of molecular geometry, who arrived in Canada after accepting an offer that included his own laboratory with new equipment, which post-World War II Britain could not provide. He was responsible for establishing inorganic chemistry education in Canada. He was educated at the University of London obtaining a B.Sc. in 1945, a Ph.D. in 1949 and a D.Sc. in 1957. He was assistant lecturer and then lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at University College London in England from 1950 to 1958. He moved to McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in 1958. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1965, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1977, and made a member of the Order of Canada in 2007. Gillespie died on February 26, 2021, at the age of ninety-six in the town of Dundas, Ontario. Gillespie did extensive work on expanding the idea of the Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion (VSEPR) model of Molecular Geometry, which he developed with Ronald Nyholm (and thus is also known as the Gillespie-Nyholm theory), and setting the rules for assigning numbers. He has written several books on this VSEPR topic in chemistry. With other workers he developed LCP theory, (ligand close packing theory), which for some molecules allows geometry to be predicted on the basis of ligand-ligand repulsions. Gillespie has also done extensive work on interpreting the covalent radius of fluorine. The covalent radius of most atoms is found by taking half the length of a single bond between two similar atoms in a neutral molecule. Calculating the covalent radius for fluorine is more difficult because of its high electronegativity compared to its small atomic radius size. Gillespie's work on the bond length of fluorine focuses on theoretically determining the covalent radius of fluorine by examining its covalent radius when it is attached to several different atoms.

Publications Chemical Bonding and Molecular Geometry: From Lewis to Electron Densities (Topics in Inorganic Chemistry) by Ronald J. Gillespie and Paul L. A. Popelier Atoms, Molecules and Reactions: An Introduction to Chemistry by Ronald J. Gillespie Chemistry by Ronald J. Gillespie, David Humphreys, Colin Baird, and E. A. Robinson Atoms, Molecules and Reactions: An Introduction to Chemistry with D.A. Humphreys, E.A. Robinson and D.R. Eaton, Prentice Hall, 1994

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ronald Gillespie

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie

In research: Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie 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: Ronald Gillespie is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1924 births, 2021 deaths, Academic staff of McMaster University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Ronald Gillespie in simple terms?

Why does Ronald Gillespie 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 Ronald Gillespie?

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 Ronald Gillespie.