Georg Wittig (1897-1987)

German chemist, professor in Braunschweig, Freiburg, Tübingen and, from 1956, at the University of Heidelberg. He studied the chemistry of carbanions and organometallic compounds; he described the ether rearrangement that bears his name and was among the first to propose benzyne as a reaction intermediate.

In 1953–1954, with Georg Geissler and Ulrich Schöllkopf, he discovered that phosphorus ylides convert aldehydes and ketones into alkenes, the Wittig reaction. He received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Herbert C. Brown, for the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds in organic synthesis.

More information: en.wikipedia.org