One of the 2019 Nobel Prize winners in chemistry John B. Goodenough
Our reporter Gao Bo
The Nobel Prize in science , especially the chemistry prize, is often ridiculed for "not doing the right thing": scholars from other fields come to visit Chemists are quite embarrassed to win awards and "doves occupy magpie's nests".
In fact, there is no doubt about the gold content of the Nobel Prize, and the honor is well-deserved, but people are more interested in "trivia". The just-awarded 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has created a “cross-border” addiction.
The cross-border life of "good enough"
As one of this year's Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, he has aroused the interest of the world - 97-year-old John B. Goodenough, who invented lithium Award-winning battery cathode material. He is the oldest Nobel Prize winner in history, and his surname is particularly easy to remember - the literal translation is "good enough". The life of Mr. "Good Enough" is a life of constantly changing jobs and crossing boundaries.
Mr. "Good Enough" was born in Jena , Germany in 1922. He had dyslexia when he was a child. No one expected that he would overcome the disease and be admitted to Yale University's Department of Classical Literature - a major that deals with books every day.
Because he was interested in the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, he was "good enough" and transferred to the Department of Philosophy. Unexpectedly, in a mathematics class, the professor thought that he had a talent for mathematics and persuaded him to study in the Department of Mathematics. In 1943, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
"Good enough" joined the U.S. Air Force after graduation and observed weather on small islands in the Pacific. In his spare time, he read the famous book "Science and the Modern World" by the mathematician Whitehead . Whitehead was a great scholar who spanned mathematics, physics, and biology. The "good enough" soul was touched by this book, so after retiring, at the age of 30, he applied for a master's degree in physics at the University of Chicago. His mentor, Zener, who later won the Nobel Prize, happily admitted this older candidate.
Zener highly recognized the potential of "good enough" physics; after completing a "good enough" master's degree, he was directly awarded a doctorate in physics. At the University of Chicago, "Good Enough" came into contact with the study of lithium ion migration in solids, but I did not expect that I would become famous for it later.
In 1976, "Good Enough" entered Oxford University to teach and be responsible for managing the inorganic chemistry laboratory. At that time, Whittingham (who also won this year's Nobel Prize) had invented the lithium battery. However, the positive and negative electrode materials were immature and the battery was too unstable for commercial use. "Good Enough" began to explore a stable cathode material. After four years of hard work, the key element-cobalt was determined. 20 years after
, "Good Enough" made two major improvements to the cathode material, resulting in today's lithium battery. Cell phone and electric car users have his wisdom to thank. Last year "Good Enough" told the media: "I want to make car exhaust disappear. I am 96 years old this year and I still have time."
Nobel "Science Comprehensive Prize"
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded 111 times. There have always been many cross-border scholars who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Many of their award-winning achievements can hardly be said to be attributed to chemistry in the textbook sense, but to cross-disciplinary such as "biological chemistry" and "physical chemistry". Therefore, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry It is also nicknamed the "Science Comprehensive Award".
The early Nobel Prizes in Chemistry were often related to physics: van't Hoff won the prize in 1901 for his solution osmosis theory; Arrhenius won the prize in 1903 for his ionization equation; Nernst won the prize in 1920 He won the prize for his famous thermodynamic formula.
The most famous cross-border award was in 1908, when the British physics master Rutherford won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on elemental transformation and radiation.He commented on this: "This is the biggest joke in my life!"
In recent decades, molecular biology has developed vigorously, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has frequently shown favor to biologists: such as Berg, who invented DNA sequencing. and Gilberg won the chemistry prize in 1980; Boyer and Scott studied ATP synthesis and the sodium-potassium ion pump , and won the prize in 1997; Kornberg won the prize in 2006 for his eukaryotic molecular transcription...
So far, about one-third of the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry are related to biology; since the beginning of the new century, two-thirds of the prizes are related to biology.
It should be said that it is reasonable for many chemistry awards to be awarded to physicists and biologists. After all, these studies involve the application of new chemical substances. Nature and science have not originally drawn a clear line between chemistry and biology, or physics and chemistry. For those scientists who have changed the form of matter and made great contributions to human welfare and scientific exploration, awarding a chemistry prize may be the most reasonable arrangement. For example, Ernst, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991, invented nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, which is extremely important, but it is difficult for him to fall into the category of physics prize or biology prize.
This year's lithium battery won the award, which is quite worthy of the Chemistry Award compared to previous years. In recent years, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been too "biological". In 2014, three physicists won the prize for super-resolution microscopy; in 2015, three biologists won the prize for DNA repair mechanisms; in 2017, it was awarded to DiBosh, Frank and Henderson, molecular biologists and Biophysicists, they developed cryo-electron microscopy to make observation of biological cells easier.
In 2018, half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Arnold for "Directed Evolution of Enzymes" and half to Smith and Winter for "Phage Display of Peptides and Antibodies." At that time, many people complained: This chemistry prize could be more biological. ?
The chairman of the Chemistry Nobel Prize Committee argued that the award "is a revolution based on evolution. Our laureates applied Darwin principles in test tubes and used this method to develop new chemicals that benefit mankind." Everyone All I can say is: "Okay, okay, whatever you say is what it is."
