chemistry

Stephen G. Davies

Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies rather than just read about it. In short: Stephen Graham Davies (born 24 February 1950) is a British chemist and was, until his retirement, the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Education Davies obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973 from New College, Oxford, and his Doctor of Philosophy in 1975 under the supervision of Gordon H.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Stephen Graham Davies (born 24 February 1950) is a British chemist and was, until his retirement, the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford.

Education Davies obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973 from New College, Oxford, and his Doctor of Philosophy in 1975 under the supervision of Gordon H. Whitham.

Career and research After his PhD, Davies subsequently held an ICI Postdoctoral Fellowship working with Malcolm Green (1975-1977) and a NATO Fellowship working with Derek Barton (1977-1978) before joining the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) at Gif-sur-Yvette as Attaché de Recherche working with Hugh Felkin. In 1980 he returned to Oxford to take up a University Lectureship in Chemistry. Whilst remaining an active academic, in 1991 he founded Oxford Asymmetry Ltd (an asymmetric synthesis company) as sole investor. He also founded Oxford Diversity Ltd (a combinatorial chemistry company). These two companies were combined to form Oxford Asymmetry International Plc in 1999 which was sold to Evotec in 2000, valued at £316m. In 2003 he founded VASTox (Value Added Screening Technology Oxford) a zebrafish screening company. It floated on AIM in 2004 and has since acquired Dainolabs (zebrafish) and Dextra (a carbohydrate chemistry company) as well as the assets of MNL Pharma. VASTox then changed its name to Summit. In 2009 the zebrafish screening operations was acquired by Evotec for £0.5 Million. In 1996, he became Professor of Chemistry and in 2006, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry. Davies is founder and editor-in-chief for the journal Tetrahedron: Asymmetry. Davies along with Malcolm Green and Michael Mingos have compiled a set of rules that summarize where nucleophilic additions will occur on pi ligands.

Awards Royal Society of Chemistry Hickinbottom Award (1984) Pfizer Award for Chemistry (1985 and 1988) Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Organometallic Chemistry (1987) Royal Society of Chemistry Bader Award (1989) Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Lecture Award (1997/98) Royal Society of Chemistry Award in Stereochemistry (1997) Prize Lectureship of the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (1998) Royal Society of Chemistry Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry (2011)

Personal life Davies is the son of Gordon W. J. Davies and June M. Murphy. In 1973 he married Kay E. Partridge who was to become a foremost human geneticist. They have one son.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stephen G. Davies

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies

In research: Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies 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: Stephen G. Davies is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, Alumni of New College, Oxford, British chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Stephen G. Davies in simple terms?

Stephen Graham Davies (born 24 February 1950) is a British chemist and was, until his retirement, the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Education Davies obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973 from New College, Oxford, and his Doctor of Philosophy in 1975 under the…

Why does Stephen G. Davies 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 Stephen G. Davies?

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 Stephen G. Davies.