4 ms·

John Goodenough is 97 years old and still moving the state of the art forward... https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium-ion-battery/97/i35 http

John Goodenough is 97 years old and still moving the state of the art forward... https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium-ion-battery/97/i35 https://cen.acs.org/people/profiles/Podcast-97-lithium-ion-b... (article also mentions he studied with Zener after whom Zener diodes are named) Middle-aged startup founders are kids!

w-m 7y ago
Recent discussion on this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20894044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20894044 From 2017: "Dr John Goodenough’s story suggests some people become more creative with age" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/opinion/sunday/to-be-a-genius-think-like-a-94-year-old.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/opinion/sunday/to-be-a-ge... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058696
chriskanan 7y ago
He is even still supervising a PhD student! [1] I have enormous admiration for those who know they have more to contribute and just keep pushing, rather than retiring. [1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-john-goodenough-96-powers-towards-a-battery-revolution-again-n27x7mffd https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-john-goodenough...
jabl 7y ago
> article also mentions he studied with Zener after whom Zener diodes are named I have noticed this phenomenon myself a lot. If you're in science, look at the Wikipedia pages of people who are today big names in your field and I can almost guarantee you'll find somebody even more famous as their PhD supervisor. I think it's things like "rock stars" get to pick the best students, those students having good role models, having it easier to land a position when your thesis advisor is some bigwig, but also that science has been expanding exponentially so a much larger fraction of the oldies were bigwigs who did big discoveries in their fields. (my own thesis advisor shared an office with Josephson back in the day (Josephson junctions, which led to SQUIDS, NMR/MRI). That was before Josephson got the Nobel, as IIRC the youngest physics laureate ever, and before he went mad and started peddling Uri Geller style mind-over-matter claptrap.)
- m463 7y ago
  Smart people clump together, and there are network effects.

w-m 7y ago

Recent discussion on this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20894044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20894044 From 2017: "Dr John Goodenough’s story suggests some people become more creative with age" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/opinion/sunday/to-be-a-genius-think-like-a-94-year-old.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/opinion/sunday/to-be-a-ge... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058696

chriskanan 7y ago

He is even still supervising a PhD student! [1] I have enormous admiration for those who know they have more to contribute and just keep pushing, rather than retiring. [1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-john-goodenough-96-powers-towards-a-battery-revolution-again-n27x7mffd https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-john-goodenough...

jabl 7y ago

> article also mentions he studied with Zener after whom Zener diodes are named I have noticed this phenomenon myself a lot. If you're in science, look at the Wikipedia pages of people who are today big names in your field and I can almost guarantee you'll find somebody even more famous as their PhD supervisor. I think it's things like "rock stars" get to pick the best students, those students having good role models, having it easier to land a position when your thesis advisor is some bigwig, but also that science has been expanding exponentially so a much larger fraction of the oldies were bigwigs who did big discoveries in their fields. (my own thesis advisor shared an office with Josephson back in the day (Josephson junctions, which led to SQUIDS, NMR/MRI). That was before Josephson got the Nobel, as IIRC the youngest physics laureate ever, and before he went mad and started peddling Uri Geller style mind-over-matter claptrap.)

m463 7y ago
Smart people clump together, and there are network effects.