Yves Chauvin

Yves Chauvin was born on 10 October 1930 in France and built his career at the Institut français du pétrole, where he worked as a research chemist far from the spotlight of major universities. In the 1970s, he deciphered the mechanism behind olefin metathesis, explaining how carbon-carbon double bonds could be broken and reformed in new combinations—a puzzle that had eluded the field. His insight laid the groundwork for an entire branch of synthesis chemistry. The work earned him the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock, and a seat in the French Ac…