WJ Bond Theory

Alfred Werner (1866 - 1919)

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In 1893, Werner was a 26-year-old unsalaried lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. After having given considerable thought to the atomic and molecular compounds of Kekulé, in 1893 Werner proposed a new explanation of the structure and properties of the metal ammines. Werner was an impulsive, intuitive worker who preferred qualitative tests rather than the quantitative methods favored by Jørgensen.

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Werner's doctoral dissertation had been completed only three years when he published a paper on the "Constitution of Inorganic Compounds."

Werner had thought deeply about the structure of these compounds and "with typical romatic fervor, he awoke one night at 2 A.M. with a solution to the riddle, which had come to him like a flash of lightning" [13]. He wrote down his coordination theory that night.