ABSTRACT
Robert Burns Woodward was an enormously gifted and almost without parallel genius with regard to organic chemistry, particularly total synthesis. In the time of Woodward's award, 1965, it is important to note that organic synthesis was a far newer field. Many of the modern characterization, purification, and synthetic techniques that are now commonplace did not yet exist or were in their infancy in Woodward's time. A Diels-Alder reaction depicts the steps in the synthesis of reserpine in the presence of catalysts. Woodward and his team foresaw that it could be selectively cleaved via ozonolysis on account of the electron-withdrawing nature of the two ester groups. A Diels-Alder reaction depicts the steps in the synthesis of reserpine in the presence of catalysts. In closing, there is no really good way to in a short format demonstrate the full genius that merited Woodward's Nobel Prize.
