Junior Takes Lab Prize In Martius Yellow Test

Gareth M. Green '53 dashed his way through seven complicated syntheses last week in a little over four hours to win the annual Marius Yellow competition in Chemistry 20, Professor Louis F. Fieser announced yesterday. Green edged out Jordan Joseph '54 for first-place honors, while John V. Merrick Sp finished third.

Brooks H. Lupien '52 and Knud K. Lonberg-Holm '53 were runners-up having gotten excellent products but having exceeded the time limit of six hours. Daniel J. Claes '53, Adrianne Ellefson '54, Elmer T. Egashira '53, and Albert I. Holtz '54 received honorable mention for getting acceptable samples of all seven products.

The Martius Yellow competition, a long-time annual event in Chem 20--Organic Chemistry--, is a nerve-Wracking test deigned to discover the best lab technician in the entire course. In a course in which the labs take on the average to ten hours a week, technical skill is always at a premium.

Contestants for the Martius Yellow competition are chosen by the lab men. Who base their selections only on the student's lab marks. To be selected for the competition is considered a great honor, and few men decline to enter despite the fact that it comes just before finals. Contestants are given less than ten grams of the starting materials and this dwindles appreciably as they go through the seven steps necessary to synthesize Martius Yallew. Only six hours of laboratory time are permitted to the entrants, who are checked in and out of the lab. Lab men are on duty all the time to check the intermediate products.

The final products are judged primarily on amount, although purity is important. The time element is also vital; Green set a new record with his elapsed time of four hours and 14 minutes. In order to get through the seven preparations in the required time contestants must know every step of the complicated process by heart.

The final products are judged by an impartial board, which this year consisted of Hans Heymann, University of Oregon; David Ginsburg, Weizmann Institute of Science, lsrael; and Bidyut Bhattacharyya, of the University of Calcutta.

This Years's winner received a copy of Fleser and Fleser, "The Natural Products Related to Phenanthrene." Other prizes were Chaim Weizmann's "Autobiography," and a subscription to Scientific American.

Lest any of the students become complacent about their own lab technique, Professor Fleser always enters the contest--and always wins. This year his elapsed time was two hours and 54 minutes, a new record even for him. As usual, however, he was disqualified from winning on the grounds of "professionalism.