CH3CP

When Sir Harry Kroto was at the National Research Council, Canada in 1964, Takeshi Oka told him about Kelvin Tyler’s analysis of the spectrum of HCP. 

Gier had made it at DuPont. From that moment on, Kroto contemplated how to make analogues.

Ten years later at Sussex, John Nixon and Sir Harry Kroto collaborated. It was this work which arguably (and Kroto would argue it) gave birth to the fields of phosphaalkene and phosphaalkyne chemistry.

One of the trickiest experiments involved obtaining the PE spectrum of CH3CP. Green fingered Nick Westwood managed it!