Robert Woodward
In the early 1940s Wooward was using ultraviolet spectroscopy to discover the structure of natural products. Woodward collected a large amount of information, and then worked out a series of rules, later called the Woodward's rules. These rules could be used to find out the structures of new natural products, as well as non-natural synthesized molecules. Woodward was always quick to use newly developed techniques. Woodward's discovery saved chemists from spending a lot of time using chemical methods to work out the structures of compounds.