https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2023-07-21/caltech-nobel-laureate-rudy-marcus-turns-100-and-gets-back-to-work * Business * California * Climate & Environment * Entertainment & Arts * En Espanol * Food * Housing & Homelessness * Image * Lifestyle * Obituaries * Opinion * Politics * Science * Sports * Travel & Experiences * World & Nation * All Sections * _________________ * Newsletters * Photography * Podcasts * Video * _________________ * About Us + About Us + Archives + Company News + eNewspaper + For the Record + Got a Tip? + L.A. Times Careers + L.A. Times Store + L. A. Times Studios + News App: Apple IOS + News App: Google Play + Newsroom Directory + Public Affairs + Rights, Clearance & Permissions + Short Docs * Advertising + Place an Ad + Classifieds + Coupons + People on the Move + Find/Post Jobs + Local Ads Marketplace + Media Kit: Why the L.A. Times? + Hot Property Sections + Place an Open House + Sotheby's International Realty * Bestcovery * B2B Publishing * Business Visionaries * Hot Property * Crossword & Games * L.A. Times Events * L.A. Times Store * Subscriptions + Manage Subscription + EZPAY + Delivery Issue + eNewspaper + Students & Educators + Subscribe + Subscriber Terms + Gift Subscription Terms * Special Supplements + Best of the Southland + Escapes and Experiences + Healthy Living + Las Vegas Guide + Philanthropy Copyright (c) 2023, Los Angeles Times | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | CA Notice of Collection | Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information Sections * California * Entertainment * Sports * Food * Climate * Image * Opinion * | * Bestcovery * Coupons * Crossword * eNewspaper Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Focus mode Show Search [ ] Search Query Submit Search Advertisement Science & Medicine A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday. Then he gets back to work Lev Marcus signs a card for his grandfather Rudy Marcus, who celebrated his 100th birthday at Caltech. Lev Marcus, 14, signs a card for his grandfather Rudy Marcus, who celebrated his 100th birthday with a day of festivities at Caltech. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) By Corinne PurtillStaff Writer July 21, 2023 5:26 PM PT * Facebook * Twitter * Show more sharing options ShareClose extra sharing options * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn * Email * Copy Link URLCopied! * Print Say you wake up on the morning of your 100th birthday, having achieved the pinnacle of recognition in your chosen field and the warm esteem of family, friends and colleagues. How would you celebrate the day ahead? "Work," quipped Caltech chemistry professor Rudy Marcus at a lunch in honor of his centenary Friday. But the university where he's been on the faculty for 45 years had other plans, so the Nobel laureate good-naturedly agreed to a symposium in his honor. Advertisement Generations of Marcus' colleagues and former students gathered at the Athenaeum, Caltech's faculty club, to celebrate a scientist who still reports to the book-lined office he has occupied on the Pasadena campus since 1978, and whose inquisitiveness and generous spirit remains undimmed. Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus in his Caltech office, where he's a chemistry professor. Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus in his Caltech office, where he's a chemistry professor. (Corinne Purtill / Los Angeles Times) "He's an excellent example of what it is to be a scientist: the curiosity, the energy, the enthusiasm and the excitement for figuring things out," said Stephen Klippenstein, a former doctoral student of Marcus' who is now a theoretical chemist at Argonne National Laboratory. "I don't think I've ever heard him say a harsh word to anyone," Klippenstein added, echoing others who described Marcus as a role model both in and out of the lab. "He leads by example: Work hard and solve hard problems." As a theoretical chemist, Marcus works with concepts rather than laboratory apparatus. He received his Nobel Prize in 1992 for work on electron transfer reactions, a deceptively simple theory describing how electrons move between molecules in chemical reactions without breaking chemical bonds. While experimental chemists produce compelling new results in the lab, Marcus seeks the elegant architecture that undergirds their findings. Advertisement Jack Y. Zhang chats with Rudy Marcus during the Nobel laureate's 100th birthday celebration at Caltech. Jack Y. Zhang, CEO and president of a pharmaceutical company, chats with Rudy Marcus, left, his former academic advisor, during the Nobel laureate's 100th birthday celebration at Caltech. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) It's an intellectual challenge that keeps him eager to return to his desk as his 11th decade begins. If anything, he said, his workload feels even more pressing as the sheer amount of intriguing experiments grows. "There are all sorts of developments in the laboratory and all sorts of new techniques that have been produced," he said Friday as well-wishers milled around his table at a pre-symposium lunch. "I have plenty of work to do, more than I can comfortably handle." Marcus still publishes several research papers per year. The Office of Naval Research just renewed a grant he's had since the 1950s. Age has demanded some concessions. He walked to work each day from his house near the Pasadena campus until the age of 97, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to stop. He hung up his skis at the age of 90, not because he couldn't physically continue, but because it seemed unwise to do so. "I'd love to ski, but I'd love not to break any bones," he said. "Once people get hospitalized, for some that's the beginning of the end, and there's too much to do yet." Science & Medicine Caltech Scientist Wins the Nobel Chemistry Prize A Caltech professor won the 1992 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for theories that help explain how living things store energy, but first word of the $1.2-million award went to his answering machine. Marcus's work ethic is legendary, colleagues and family members said. When his eldest son Alan Marcus, a cultural historian and professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, decided to shift to part-time work as his 65th birthday approached, "Dad said, 'You're such a slacker,' " the younger Marcus recalled with a laugh. Marcus was married to Laura Hearne from 1949 until her death from multiple myeloma in 2003. Their sons Alan, Kenneth and Raymond all obtained doctoral degrees in history. Marcus continued to teach until the age of 95, when he decided "enough is enough." "They should really have somebody who really knows something," he said. Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus celebrated his 100th birthday with a day of festivities at Caltech Nobel laureate Rudy Marcus celebrated his 100th birthday with a day of festivities at Caltech, where he has worked since 1978. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) As a teacher, Marcus "has this uncanny ability to reduce very complex problems into simple essentials," said Caltech chemist Zhen-Gang Wang . "The electron transfer theory" -- his Nobel Prize-winning work -- "is a great example of that." Marcus was at an electrochemistry conference when the call came in from Stockholm in 1992. At a hastily called news conference at the Toronto hotel where he was staying, the professor demurred when asked about the newfound fame that comes with being a Nobel laureate. "I don't know that I want to attract more attention to my work," a bemused Marcus told reporters. "I just want more time to get it done." He got his wish. His colleagues couldn't have foreseen the sheer longevity of his tenure when he arrived at Caltech during the Carter administration, "but the Nobel Prize quality, yes," said John D. Baldeschwieler, a retired professor emeritus of chemistry who was chair of the department at the time of Marcus' hiring. Marcus was born in 1923 in Montreal, the much-loved only child of Esther and Myer Marcus. His mother in particular instilled a love of learning, in part motivated by the fact that her own family lacked the money to continue her education beyond grade school. "She told me that when I was a baby and she used to wheel me in a carriage around McGill, she told me that I would go there," he said in an oral history collected by Caltech in 1993. (She was right: he earned both his bachelor's degree and doctorate at the prestigious Montreal university.) He was drawn to puzzles as a child, and has often described his approach to science as a decades-long continuation of the childlike pleasure of teasing a solution from once-scattered parts. "The main thing is finding something that you enjoy doing, that preferably doesn't harm others, and that tests whatever aptitude one has, that tests one's ingenuity," he said. "It's almost like a kind of a game. You against nature." Science & MedicineCaliforniaWorld & Nation [] Corinne Purtill Follow Us * Twitter * Instagram * Email * Facebook Corinne Purtill is a science and medicine reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her writing on science and human behavior has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Time Magazine, the BBC, Quartz and elsewhere. Before joining The Times, she worked as the senior London correspondent for GlobalPost (now PRI) and as a reporter and assignment editor at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. She is a native of Southern California and a graduate of Stanford University. More From the Los Angeles Times * Theo Baker, a student journalist at Stanford, received a George Polk Award at a ceremony in April. Science & Medicine Q&A: How this Stanford freshman brought down the president of the university * AZUSA, CA - June 29: With a stethoscope, Marco Garcia, left, listens to his son's heart beating inside Alyssa Sauls, right, chest at OneLegacy on June 29, 2023, in Azusa, CA. When Marco Garcia asked to hear the heart of his late son - now beating inside the body of a young mother - OneLegacy hosted a June meeting in a front room at its Azusa facility. Garcia listened, sobbing, through a stethoscope as his son pressed his shoulders and his wife steadied his arm. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) California Nonprofit that leads organ recovery in SoCal could be jeopardized by poor rankings * FILE - Amanda Zurawski, one of five plaintiffs, speaks in front of the state Capitol in Austin, Texas, March 7, 2023, as the Center for Reproductive Rights and the plaintiffs announced their lawsuit, which asks for clarity in Texas law as to when abortions can be provided under the "medical emergency" exception. All five women were denied medical care while experiencing pregnancy complications that threatened their health and lives. The women are headed to court Wednesday, July 19, as legal challenges to abortion bans across the U.S. continue a year after the fall of Roe v. Wade. (Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File) Politics Texas women denied abortions give emotional accounts in court, ask judge to clarify law * Marc Tessier-Lavigne speaks to the media at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., on Feb. 4, 2016. Tessier-Lavigne, the president of Stanford University said Wednesday, July 19, 2023, he would resign, citing an independent review that cleared him of research misconduct but found flaws in other papers authored by his lab. Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement to students and staff that he would step down Aug. 31. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group via AP) California Stanford president stepping down amid scrutiny over his research Subscribers Are Reading * For Subscribers Dream interrupted: As gang violence soars in Mexico, migrants in U.S. rethink plans to go home * Column: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley's magical thinking * He lived to be outdoors, even in extremes like Death Valley. He died doing what he loved * E. coli hammers a California town, sending patients to ER and shutting down restaurants * For Subscribers The best mariscos, sushi and seafood restaurants in L.A. from the 101 guide Advertisement Latest Science * Science & Medicine Second Alzheimer's drug in pipeline can slow the disease by a few months but with safety risk * Science & Medicine 'Oppenheimer' extols atomic bomb triumph but ignores health effects on those living near test site * California Did you get COVID but never feel sick? New study hints at why * Opinion Opinion: The FDA approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill. Here's why I'm underwhelmed * Science & Medicine As the planet warms, scientists warn that cases of infectious diseases could spike Advertisement Advertisement Subscribers Are Reading * World & Nation It was over 100 degrees in Las Vegas as Delta airline passengers were stuck in the stifling cabin for hours * Politics For Subscribers In the war over transgender rights, Florida is ground zero. One woman's battle to survive * Business Forget Tesla. Mercedes is betting $45 billion it can become the king of luxury EVs Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A California Times publication Subscribe for unlimited access Site Map Follow Us * Twitter * Instagram * YouTube * Facebook * + eNewspaper + Coupons + Find/Post Jobs + Place an Ad + Media Kit: Why the L. A. Times? + Bestcovery * MORE FROM THE L.A. TIMES + Crossword + Obituaries + Recipes + L.A. Times Compare + L.A. Times Store + Wine Club + About/Contact + For the Record + L.A. Times Careers + Manage Subscription + Reprints and Permissions + Site Map Copyright (c) 2023, Los Angeles Times | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | CA Notice of Collection | Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information