Olefin-Metathesis Catalysts for the Preparation of Molecules and Materials (Nobel Lecture 2005)Copyright The Nobel Foundation 2005. We thank the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, for permission to print this lecture

This is a story of our exploration of the olefin-metathesis reaction, a reaction that has been the major emphasis of my independent research. As with all stories of scientific discovery, there are three components: the discoveries, the resulting applications, and, perhaps the most important of all, the people involved. Starting from observations made from seemingly unrelated work, our investigations into the fundamental chemistry of this transformation have been an exciting journey, with major advances often resulting from complete surprises, mistakes, and simple intuition. Ultimately, these efforts have contributed to olefin metathesis becoming the indispensable synthetic tool that it is today.