John B. Goodenough | Boomers Daily

Interview with the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry John B. Goodenough, 6 December 2019

0:07 – What advice would you give to a younger version of yourself?  0:32 – How do you recognise a good teacher?  0:58 – Do you see yourself as a mentor now?  1:33 – What qualities do you think you need to be a successful scientist?   3:04 – How do you cope with failure?   3:16 – How has your dyslexia shaped you?  3:44 – How important has nature been for you?      4:40 – Has music played an important role in your life?   5:06 – How did your interest in poetry start?   6:14 – How did you meet your wife?   7:06 – What life advice can you share?   8:30 – How do you remember so much of your life?   8:47 – How does it feel to be back in Stockholm after 80 years?   9:21 – How has living through World War II influenced you? 10:03 – What is your relationship with your lab colleagues?   11:18 – What are the characteristics of a very good team?  11:55 – What is your relationship with Akira Yoshino?   12:28 – How has the scientific landscape has changed over the years?   13:42 – What environment encourage creative thinking?   14:48 – What research are you working on now?   15:39 – What are your thoughts on sustainability?   16:37 – What future do you see for sustainable batteries?

John Bannister Goodenough born July 25, 1922) is an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. He is a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Texas at Austin. He is widely credited with the identification and development of the lithium-ion battery, for developing the Goodenough–Kanamori rules in determining the sign of the magnetic superexchange in materials, and for seminal developments in computer random access memory.

From a UChicago News online article:

Three-quarters of a century later, at age 97, Goodenough will become the oldest person to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. At a Dec. 10 ceremony in Sweden, he will be honored for pioneering breakthroughs that led to the widespread use of the lithium-ion battery—and helping spark the wireless revolution. The descendants of his batteries now power modern smartphones and hold the potential to one day sustainably harvest solar and wind power.

John B. Goodenough can still remember, word for word, what a University of Chicago professor told him when he arrived on campus following World War II: “I don’t understand you veterans,” said John A. Simpson, a new UChicago instructor who had just helped achieve the first nuclear reaction. “Don’t you know that anyone who has ever done anything significant in physics had already done it by the time he was your age—and you want to begin?”