Here is a list of supposedly the "top 500" living chemists, based on the Hirsch index.

Now the Hirsch index (or h value) of an author is essentially the largest number n for which the author can claim that s/he has published n papers each of which has been cited at least n times.

The index is quite good for comparison between people in the same specialty and at a similar stage of their career. Thus, if you have a list of applicants for a professorship in physical chemistry, I am sure that it will be helpful to look at their h values.

However, the list of the "top chemists" suffers from the fact that the Hirsch index rises almost automatically as time goes by. For example, I quit research in the year 2000 with a value of 10, and since then it has increased steadily by one unit per year, as people have continued to cite my papers.

Therefore, the list is heavily biased in favour of old and very old chemists. Conversely, the biggest star in this list is clearly Ad Bax (No. 6): as he is decades younger than everybody above him, he will effortlessly rise to the top of the list within the next few years.

Oh, and did I mention that my own h value is higher than that of Kary Mullis, who has a Nobel Prize to his name ?

So by all means go through the list to spot people you know, but don't take it too seriously ...

Here's the top 10 :

1 Corey, E. J.# 132 Organic

4 Wüthrich, K.# 113 Bio

5 Heeger, A. J.# 112 Organic

6 Hoffmann, R.# 111 Theoretical

8 Lehn, J. M. # 105 Organic