The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1979 was awarded jointly to Herbert C. Brown and Georg Wittig "for their development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into important reagents in organic synthesis".
 

Herbert C Brown, who is professor at Purdue University, has developed new reagents containing boron. One of his reagents is sodium boro-hydride, which has become the reagent of choice for reduction of carbonyl compounds. He has also modified the boro-hydrides into reagents for highly selective chemical transformations. In addition Brown has introduced an entirely new class of compounds, the organoboranes, obtained by reacting diborane with olefins. Georg Wittig has developed new synthetic methods of considerable importance and has studied reaction mechanisms.
 

Brown's and Wittig's results have opened up new vistas in organic synthesis and highly stimulated the further development of their science. Their methods were rapidly introduced not only into chemical laboratories, but also into elementary text books and laboratory courses.