Remembering George Olah

George Olah was the Hungarian chemist born in prewar Budapest, who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in organic chemistry involved the creation of carbocations. Normally organic compounds are stable and nonionic, but Dr. Olah found that when treated with extremely strong acids - superacids - they could form reactive ionic compounds and this may have implications for the generation of new forms of energy from carbon compounds. Dr. Olah left Hungary after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and he ultimately settled in California at USC, where most of his groundbreaking work was done.