Amateur Chemistry - Notable Amateur Chemists

Notable Amateur Chemists

  • Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, and Hewlett Packard co-founder David Packard all used to practice amateur chemistry.
  • British neurologist Oliver Sacks was a keen amateur chemist in his youth, as described in his memoir Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.
  • Nobel Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling practised amateur chemistry in his youth.
  • Wolfram Research co-founder Theodore Gray is a keen amateur chemist and element collector. His exploits (most notably the construction of a wooden table in the shape of the periodic table, having compartments holding real samples of each element) earned him the 2002 Ig Nobel prize for chemistry, which he accepted as a great honor. He writes a column for Popular Science magazine, featuring his home experiments.
  • Amateur rocketeer (and later NASA engineer) Homer Hickham, together with his fellow Rocket Boys, experimented with a range of home-made rocket propellants. These included "Rocket Candy" made from potassium nitrate and sugar, and "Zincoshine" made from zinc and sulfur held together with moonshine alcohol.
  • Composer Sir Edward Elgar practised amateur chemistry from a laboratory erected in his back garden. The original manuscript of the prelude to The Kingdom is stained with chemicals.

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