To celebrate the International Year of Chemistry we’ve created a new section for Chemistry World where chemistry luminaries and Nobel laureates talk about the chemistry heroes and heroines that inspired them. We start with none other than Harry Kroto, who tells us about his admiration for John ‘Kappa’ Cornforth.
But we are interested in more than just the chemistry heroes of Nobel laureates and so we are asking you to participate in our blog and create an entry with your chemist of choice. The team here will all be making their contribution in the next few weeks and months and our editor Bibiana Campos-Seijo has got the ball rolling with her nomination: Carl Djerassi.
Watch this space for more or your and our heroes.
Tue 11 Jan 2011 at 4:22 pm
[...] We’d love to hear about your heroes! [...]
Tue 11 Jan 2011 at 4:29 pm
Edgar Walker has just sent us his candidate for hero of chemistry…
When considering great heroes of chemistry (Chemistry World, January 2011, p41), there’s no competition: it has to be Linus Pauling, a great scientist and a great human being. He received a Nobel prize for chemistry and also for peace.
How many of us read The nature of the chemical bond? As fundamental to our first understanding of chemistry as was his interpretation of the hybridisation of atomic orbitals.
If he had had Rosalind Franklin’s excellent x-ray diffraction images, it might have been Linus Pauling not Crick and Watson in the history books!
He was a long-time peace activist and was associated with Einstein and Bertrand Russell in their opposition to atomic weapons. His petition to the US Government with its concerns about atomic fall-out helped to bring about an end to above ground testing (AGT) in 1955. He carried on this work despite much opprobrium from his peers.
E Walker, Bexhill on Sea
Tue 11 Jan 2011 at 4:35 pm
And, to prove you don’t have to have just one hero, Harry Kroto has told us about another of his heroes, Joseph Rotblat:
Jo Rotblat (Sir Joseph, 1908-2005) and I became a good friends during the last few years of his life and the two interviews which are streaming from the Vega website (www.vega.org.uk) capture not only the charm, spirit and humanity, but also the intelligence and steely determination of one of the great men of the 20th century. Jo was a Polish physicist who while working during the war in Liverpool with James Chadwick – the discoverer of the neutron – was encouraged (by Chadwick) to work on the Manhattan project. When it was clear that Hitler did not have a nuclear weapon Jo resigned because the reason for completing the project – (ostensibly!) as a deterrent – no longer applied. After the war Jo started to use his knowledge of radiation effects for medical purposes. However his major contribution was that for much of the rest of his life he was the driving force behind Pugwash, arguably the most effective organisation aimed at curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Jo was awarded the Nobel peace prize jointly with Pugwash in 1997 and I advise all to read his wonderful Nobel address. The resounding quote from this speech is a plea to all mankind to, ‘Remember your humanity – and forget the rest.’
Harry Kroto, Florida, US
Tue 11 Jan 2011 at 5:18 pm
I am a bit torn. As a formulation and colloids type I ought to pick someone from that area, but as an industry person with an interest in colour I also have to confess that we should be thankful to synthetic organic chemistry for advances in medicines and so much else which is commercial as well as life-enhancing. So I reckon there’s a good argument that W.H.Perkin more or less started the organic chemistry ball rolling with mauveine synthesis in 1856.
Tue 11 Jan 2011 at 5:39 pm
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Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 2:25 am
My hero? it was an immediate response: Peter C. Uden; my grad school advisor. He has many impressive accomplishments in instrumental design and methodology, but as an educator he was incomparable – shepherding a periodic table’s worth of students to lives and careers in chemistry. If I end my career just half as revered as Peter, then my studies have been worthwhile.
Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 2:38 pm
My Polymer Chemistry Hero
Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 3:11 pm
[...] and there are calls out to name the Greatest Chemist of All Time from Nature Chemistry and Chemistry World is looking for your Chemist heroes. I made a few attempts at trying to choose and name drop the big [...]
Wed 12 Jan 2011 at 10:10 pm
It’s tough to pick just one hero, but I suppose if I have to pick one then it’ll have to be Antoine Lavoisier. Lavoisier did so much for chemistry, the likes of which could only be rivaled by Linus Pauling, Joseph Priestley or John Dalton. Lavoisier helped to standardise chemical nomenclature, bringing it from alchemist mumbojumbo to the level of a respectable science. He was also a very careful practitioner of chemistry, carrying out careful investigations on the decomposition and subsequent recomposition of compounds which helped abolish the phlogiston theory, and also lead to the conservation of mass law. Not only did he do all this but he also first discovered that water is a compound, which put yet another nail in the coffin of Aristotle’s four element theory.
Thu 13 Jan 2011 at 4:56 am
bajah & Oriaifo
Wed 23 Mar 2011 at 2:52 pm
Topic : My Chemical Heros
Two people inspired me to specialise in my field of inorganic chemistry / catalysis and I am indebted to them as my work has been stimulating and satisfying for the past 15 years.
Roger Mawby (Univ. York) – he spread out a huge collection of flasks of inorganic salt solutions across the bench at the front of the lecture theatre, each a different colour. This simple demonstration of variety inspired my interest and knowing / applying the knowledge of the links between colour and oxidation stage was valuable in solving significant plant based problems during my time in PGM chemical production at JM Royston.
Robin Perutz (Univ. York) is a quiet genius. Get him on his subject and his passion was infectious and led me to studying reaction mechanisms for my Ph.D. He enable me to see order in the massive variety of known transition metal organometallics. Understanding mechanisms has been key to success in my current role even though that is now in the field of Material Science
Fri 30 Sep 2011 at 4:35 pm
colour, colours, free colours, color mixer…
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