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Asked by 625mecm38 to Neil on 15 Mar 2018.
Question: who is your favourite scientist?
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Neil Keddie answered on 15 Mar 2018:
My favourite scientist is a Scottish Chemist called Sir Fraser Stoddart (find him on Twitter @sirfrasersays). He won the Nobel Prize in 2016 for his work on nanotechnology at the atomic level and showed how you could make amazing structures and even nano-machines. He works in an area of chemistry called Supramolecular Chemistry, which is all about building tiny structures from single atoms up.
Some of his old students have gone on to do amazing work in the same area – google Professor Doug Philp (at University of St Andrews) and Professor David Leigh (at University of Manchester). He also has a new project for large scale gold recover that uses food-grade chemicals to extract gold from ores without the need to use highly toxic cyanide – that’s something to watch for the future.
Comments
Alan commented on :
Probably a physicist called James Clerk Maxwell – his understanding was so far ahead of him time it was incredibly impressive and he worked at the University of Aberdeen for a period of time!
Neil commented on :
I do like how there’s a Scottish theme running through our inspirational scientists threads here!