Nenad Trinajstić (26 October 1936 – 27 August 2021) was a Croatian chemist and one of pioneers of the

chemical graph theory Chemical graph theory is the topology branch of mathematical chemistry which applies graph theory to mathematical modelling of chemical phenomena. The pioneers of chemical graph theory are Alexandru Balaban, Ante Graovac, Iván Gutman, Haruo ...

Life and work

Trinajstić was born in

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

. He received M.Sc. and

D.Sc. A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...

degrees from the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...

based on work done at the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

under John Murrell. His doctoral advisor was

Milan Randić Milan Randić (born 1 October 1930) is a Croatian American scientist recognized as one of the leading experts in the field of computational chemistry. Birth and education Randić was born in the city of Belgrade, where his parents, originally fr ...

. From 1968 to 1970 he was a Postdoctoral fellow under Michael J. S. Dewar at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

with whom he has published 16 papers. He worked at

Pliva Pliva d.o.o. is a pharmaceutical company based in Zagreb, Croatia that primarily manufactures and sells generic drugs. It is a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceuticals. Pliva is one of the world's largest producers of Generic drug, generic Adderall. ...

and

Ruđer Bošković Institute The Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI; , , IRB) is a research institute located in the Šalata neighborhood of Zagreb, Croatia, founded in 1950, which studies the sciences. Description It is the largest Croatian research institute in the fields ...

eventually becoming a full research professor in 1977 and from 2001 professor emeritus at the

. His scientific interests are

quantum chemistry Quantum chemistry, also called molecular quantum mechanics, is a branch of physical chemistry focused on the application of quantum mechanics to chemical systems, particularly towards the quantum-mechanical calculation of electronic contributions ...

mathematical chemistry Mathematical chemistry is the area of research engaged in novel applications of mathematics to chemistry; it concerns itself principally with the mathematical modeling of chemical phenomena. Mathematical chemistry has also sometimes been called ...

chemoinformatics Cheminformatics (also known as chemoinformatics) refers to the use of physical chemistry theory with computer and information science techniques—so called "''in silico''" techniques—in application to a range of descriptive and prescriptive pr ...

history of chemistry The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Examples include the discovery of fire, ex ...

and philosophy of natural science. He wrote the first monograph on

and introduced several

molecular descriptor Molecular descriptors play a fundamental role in chemistry, pharmaceutical sciences, environmental protection policy, and health researches, as well as in quality control, being the way molecules, thought of as real bodies, are transformed into num ...

s such as 3-dimensional Wiener index and Zagreb indices (with Ivan Gutman), which are among the more studied topological indices. Independently of Jun-ichi Aihara, he introduced topological resonance energy as a reliable theory of

aromaticity In organic chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property describing the way in which a conjugated ring of unsaturated bonds, lone pairs, or empty orbitals exhibits a stabilization stronger than would be expected from conjugation alone. The e ...

. In quantum chemistry he worked on semi-empirical

molecular orbital theory In chemistry, molecular orbital theory (MO theory or MOT) is a method for describing the electronic structure of molecules using quantum mechanics. It was proposed early in the 20th century. The MOT explains the paramagnetic nature of O2, whic ...

and settling conjugated-circuit model on a firm quantum-mechanical basis. Trinajstić has published more than 500 scientific papers, about 150 technical papers and 12 books. He was a full member of Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of

International Academy of Mathematical Chemistry The International Academy of Mathematical Chemistry (IAMC) was founded in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 2005 by Milan Randić. It is an organization for chemistry and mathematics avocation; its predecessors have been around since the 1930s. There are 88 ...

and was awarded the Mid–America State Universities Association Distinguished Foreign Scholar Award in 1986 and Croatian National Science Award in 2003. Trinajstić died on 27 August 2021 at the age of 85.

References

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * N. Trinajstic. Chemical Graph Theory. Vols. 1,2. CRC Press: Boca Raton, Florida, 1983; 2nd Ed. 1992. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trinajstic, Nenad 1936 births 2021 deaths Croatian chemists Scientists from Zagreb Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts