[HN Gopher] The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021
___________________________________________________________________
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021
Author : _Microft
Score : 173 points
Date : 2021-10-06 09:51 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nobelprize.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nobelprize.org)
| peyloride wrote:
| It would be really nice if someone can ELI5 this.
| peyloride wrote:
| It would be nice if someone can ELI5 this.
| _Microft wrote:
| Catalysts make reactions go faster and are not consumed during
| the reaction. There are molecules that are mirror images of one
| another. It was thought that there were only two types of
| catalysts that could help with those: enzymes and metal
| catalysts. The laureates discovered a third type that is easier
| to work with and outperforms the other methods. It is in wide
| use now.
|
| (Edit: that turned out to be pretty ELI _5_ actually. _Proceeds
| to build mirrored molecules from Lego bricks_...)
| Greek0 wrote:
| Organic synthesis is about making new molecules that haven't
| existed before. That's important for developing new drugs,
| improved batteries, better plastics, etc.
|
| Organic molecules are networks of atoms, with both a distinct
| connectivity pattern, and a specific 3D orientation [1] of the
| atoms to each other. See e.g. the Wikipedia page of Lipitor[2]
| a picture of the connectivity pattern.
|
| We build these molecules through chemical reactions. Over time,
| we have become pretty good at creating the connectivity
| patterns we want. However, achieving the correct 3D arrangement
| is still challenging.
|
| List and MacMillan developed new chemical reactions that enable
| us to get both the connectivity, and the 3D aspect right. Such
| new methods are frequent Nobel contenders, and won e.g. in 2001
| with Knowles/Noyori/Sharpless.
|
| As for how these reactions work: it is true that they are
| catalyst-based and that catalysts speed up reactions, but that
| perspective is a bit misleading. The key point is that without
| catalysts, these reactions would not happen at all. So the
| catalysts List&MacMillan found accelerate some desirable
| reactions so much that they turn from "practically doesn't
| happen at all" to "done in an hour".
|
| Congratulations to the outstanding work, and to the Nobel
| price!
|
| [1]: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)
| for a deeper look [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atorvastatin [3]: For a deeper
| look at the chemistry, check out
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistry...
| and https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-
| chemistr... -- also shared by _Microft
| hidden-spyder wrote:
| @aazaa posted a great reply simplifying it. It's the top
| comment now.
| amelius wrote:
| The monetary award corresponding to the Nobel Prize is only
| 0.0005% of the net worth of Jeff Bezos.
|
| The societal value of Amazon must be huge ...
| hallqv wrote:
| Would I argue that the societal value of Amazon is actually
| huge (AUC-wise). Amazon positively impacts all of it's
| employees, consumers as well as other companies (my company
| wouldn't exists if AWS hadn't paved the wave for cheap cloud
| computing).
|
| Anyway, it is certainly a mistake to equate generating
| socieltal value with financial gains. In many settings there is
| a strong positive correlation (Amazon IMO), others where it's
| weak (research) and yet others where it's negative (drug
| dealing).
| taneq wrote:
| That's a specious comparison. Nobody awarded Bezos his wealth.
| melling wrote:
| That's sort of an absurd comparison. Some rich guy 125 years
| ago...
|
| Anyway, it would be great, however, if society (we!) did value
| science, research, etc much more.
|
| We could collectively decide to cure cancer(s).
|
| We could collectively decide to create a better material than
| plastic.
|
| We could collectively decide to create better batteries so
| renewables become more feasible.
|
| We could collectively develop safer nuclear power...
|
| We could do such much more..
| amelius wrote:
| > That's sort of an absurd comparison.
|
| Making the comparison would be absurd only if the difference
| in payoff wasn't so absurd.
| ed_balls wrote:
| it's a bad idea to compare cash to a number in a computer which
| estimate share value (taking future cash flow into account)
| joelbluminator wrote:
| What? Besos can sell his stocks in a few months and turn it
| into cash. Even if he can't sell everything, let's say he can
| "only" get 50B in a few months. Eventually he will be able to
| sell it all if he wants to, there are buyers. Even his ex
| wife is now one of the richest women in the world so...
| refurb wrote:
| I haven't been in the lab in a while but David MacMillan was
| already a legend back then.
|
| His work has become a core innovation in organic chemistry so not
| surprising he gets a Nobel.
|
| And nice to see the Nobel in Chemistry go to a chemist not a
| biologist!
| supperburg wrote:
| Has anyone been to the Nobel ceremony? Is it possible for a
| layman to go?
| _Microft wrote:
| There is a section on the page called "Read more about this
| year's prize" that contains links to a technical and a more
| accessible description that might easily be missed. If you want
| to know more, here are they for your convenience.
|
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistry...
|
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistr...
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Thanks for this. Btw, wtf is up with the banned account reply
| here? Very weird spam.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| If you see the accounts previous replies, it's many of the
| same comment on multiple posts.
|
| Perhaps a lazy attempt at automatic comment-karma farming?
| hikerclimber1 wrote:
| Everything is subjective. Especially laws.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Why hasn't Harry gray gotten a Nobel?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Which prize would you have taken away from this timeline's
| winners to give to him instead?
| ryan93 wrote:
| They only gave two prizes. Third could have gone to him
| sorenso wrote:
| MacMillian could very well win a second nobel prize for
| photoredox chemistry somewhere down the line too.
| eganp wrote:
| Somewhat surprised asymmetric organocatalysis was awarded over
| asymmetric photocatalysis or photoredox chemistry.
| Photocatalysis is newer, has more demonstrated use cases, and
| holds more promise.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| "Institute for coal research" - German science marketing really
| leaves a lot to be desired. Never would I have guessed that
| inside such a lab top science happens.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| "Institute for carbon-based life research."
|
| ;)
| geoalchimista wrote:
| Coal and oil, when not burned for energy, are raw materials for
| making a lot of essential chemicals.
| refurb wrote:
| If anything that speaks to the longevity and roots of the
| institute. I'm guessing it was formed way back.
|
| Indeed, 1912.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_for_Coa...
|
| Keep in mind coal research was HUGE in organic chemistry. It
| was a major source of precursors like aromatic hydrocarbons
| which fed the dye industry which was the origination of organic
| chemistry (it led to the sulfonamide antibiotics).
|
| Germany absolutely _dominated_ organic chemistry in the late
| 1800s /early 1900s. It was the place to be to do organic
| chemistry. Many of the top organic chemistry journals today
| (Angewandte Chemie) are still topic tier journals for
| researchers.
|
| That's the history of the institute.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| During WW2 Germany needed gasoline.
|
| They did get it out of coal, but it ended up not being cost
| effective.
| _Microft wrote:
| The name dates back to 1912 when the institute was founded.
| Today it is run by Max-Planck-Society, a top-notch research
| association. The last time someone at a Max Planck institute
| received a Nobel Prize before this one was ... yesterday.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society#Nobel_Laure...
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I consider it a feature and not a bug that we don't slap
| hollywood-esque name onto research. it studies carbon/coal,
| it's the coal research centre, it does what is says on the
| label
|
| marketing is how you get 'autopilots' driving over people (a
| label that also happens to be banned here in advertisement)
| aazaa wrote:
| > "for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis"
|
| The prize is about artificial catalysts. A catalyst is a
| substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed.
| Another way to speed reactions up is to heat them, but that
| consumes energy and often leads to by-products that must be
| removed and disposed of.
|
| The "asymmetric" part has to do with one kind of by-product. Some
| reactions produce 50% of a by-product that must be separated out
| and disposed of. This happens because some molecules have 3D
| structure that's different than its mirror image. Think of the
| way that certain objects like bottle caps and screws only turn
| one way to tighten. Molecules can have that property (including
| many drugs you may have taken), and if the handedness is wrong,
| in many applications, it's a by-product and/or poison. An
| asymmetric catalyst can make molecules of one handedness
| selectively, saving material, money, and energy.
|
| The "organocatalysis" part has to do with what the catalyst is
| made of. Prior to the awardee's research, catalysts tended to
| contain metal atoms. A few Nobels have been awarded for catalytic
| processes that use metals.
|
| So metals are great in principle, but in practice have issues.
| Some metals are linked to toxicity at trace levels. So when
| preparing drugs, you need to be very careful about purifying out
| the metal contaminants. Palladium is an example of a very
| versatile catalytic metal that causes problems during drug
| manufacture. Metals can also be quite expensive. Platinum and
| Rhodium are used in both chemical manufacture and in automobile
| catalytic converters. The price of Rhodium hit $25,000/oz
| recently. Not all metals are this expensive, but the cost and
| availability are often a problem.
|
| The awarded work uses catalysts that don't contain metals.
| Instead, the catalysts contain the elements carbon, hydrogen,
| oxygen, nitrogen, and possibly some other non-metal atoms. In
| other words, these catalysts are made of the same kinds of atoms
| as life. (Enzymes catalyze biological reactions.) So now there's
| a link between biological catalysis and artificial catalysis that
| didn't exist before.
|
| This work solved a number of practical problems, really went
| against dogma at the time, and opened up an important area of
| research that intersects with big questions like the origins of
| life.
| superposeur wrote:
| Thanks for this clear account. This proves that it is possible
| (at least occasionally) to describe a chemistry project using
| ordinary language to a non-chemist.
|
| By contrast, every single chemistry poster session or talk
| seems instead to consist of inscrutable walls of long technical
| terms and impossibly convoluted flow charts. I've often
| wondered whether this really all makes perfect sense to
| chemists themselves? Like, if I were to surreptitiously change
| one syllable out of a 10-syllable word, or reverse a couple of
| the arrows on a flow chart, would anyone in the audience
| notice? If not, then why is the information being conveyed in
| this way, seemingly without any effort at comprehensibility?
|
| Edit: don't mean to condescend to chemists. The question is a
| genuine one. Does it really have to be so inaccessible from
| start to finish? Maybe yes is the answer, that's the nature of
| the thing. Physics is not like that, for instance.
| gilleain wrote:
| > whether this really all makes perfect sense to chemists
| themselves?
|
| Yes. Obviously! Someone working in a technical field will
| understand the jargon and notation of that field.
|
| Certainly if you are working in (say) physical chemistry, you
| might not be familiar with all the terminolgy of (say)
| organometallic chemistry, or vice versa.
|
| The question of whether the audience might 'notice' is more
| tricky, but still bizarre. Certainly, changing (say) one part
| of a long chemical name might escape attention, but so what?
|
| For example, one catalyst due to the prize winners is :
|
| (5S)-2,2,3-trimethyl-5-phenylmethyl-4-imidazolidinone
|
| if I swapped the '2,2,3-trimethyl' and the '5-phenylmethyl'
| parts of this, it would be likely non-standard nomenclature,
| and maybe someone might notice. However the information
| conveyed would be the same.
| superposeur wrote:
| Ok then! Truly impressive that chemists carry around such a
| store of jargon.
| gilleain wrote:
| Well at least they've moved on from the days of alchemy
| where the tendency was to make up your own notation and
| jargon to obscure what you actually did :)
| mattkrause wrote:
| It might help to know these names are formed
| systematically.
|
| URIs can also look inscrutable, but make more sense once
| you know how to break them down into
| scheme://user@host:port/path
|
| Chemical names (mostly) work the same way. There are a
| fair number of rules and concepts, but once you
| understand them, the endless names map onto structures
| pretty cleanly[0]. Here are some of them: http://www.chem
| .uiuc.edu/GenChemReferences/nomenclature_rule...
|
| [0] Mostly. There are some historical exceptions. Acetone
| should be called something like 2-propanone, for example,
| but...it isn't.
| shadilay wrote:
| Most common chemicals are exceptions to IUPAC naming.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| Would you prefer CS algorithms in papers to be written in
| English prose rather than pseudo code? Would you notice if
| your neural network diagram has its arrows reversed? I do not
| understand HN's superiority complex when it comes to
| notation. Every thread on music in this forum devolves to
| complaints about music notation rather than the essence of
| the art itself. It is disappointing.
| superposeur wrote:
| To be clear, despite the slightly snarky tone, I don't mean
| to condescend to chemists! Quite the opposite, this is
| borne out of disappointment when I listen to a whole chem
| presentation and fail to grasp even one simple idea. I'm a
| physicist, btw, and could easily fill a presentation with
| inscrutable equations but what would be the point of that?
| Instead I make sure that everyone (even a scientifically
| literate layperson) can stay on board at least the first
| third of the presentation.
| siver_john wrote:
| As someone who sits on the bounds of a lot of fields, I
| have to say it is surprising what many scientists think
| are "common knowledge." So having never seen your
| presentation I would question whether it is even a
| scientific literate layperson would actually be able to
| follow.
|
| I distinctly remember being in a room of biologists and
| having to explain that, your general STEM audience does
| not automatically know what a protein is. They were
| incredulous, but I pointed out that I had to just explain
| that to a computer scientist like a week prior.
|
| For example to you as a physicist I'm sure I could
| casually drop the word "force field" and you would know
| exactly what I'm discussing but a biologist or even
| chemist wouldn't. But it's such a casually thrown around
| word in my specialty we will just use it without
| thinking. Similarly Newtonian physics/classical
| physics/etc.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/2501/ (Average Familiarity) is very
| funny, in part because it is 100% real.
| ff10 wrote:
| I guess it's alway a question of what audience you speak
| to. OPs explanation could probably be summarized in 2
| sentences when aimed at chemists.
| fossuser wrote:
| I share a similar skepticism of people the obfuscate the
| information with jargon.
|
| Any technical field will have its jargon, but the general
| concept can also (almost always) be explained in a more
| accessible way (like the hn comment and the article's
| introduction do).
|
| I've found people that rely on jargon exclusively sometimes
| don't actually understand the underlying concepts when you
| ask them questions that dig into it. It's one of the flags
| that someone is full of shit. Sometimes it's just targeting a
| narrow audience.
| bawolff wrote:
| Its not that they can't be explained more accessibly, its
| that they shouldn't.
|
| When you talk to other practitioners its more important to
| be precise and succint than it is to be accessible. Just
| like the opposite is true when talking to the general
| public. Different audiences have different needs.
|
| Some people do use excessive jargon to sound "smart" (and
| they are annoying). Anyone who knows what they are doing
| should be able to communicate in either mode depending on
| what the situation demands. Just because some people abuse
| jargon doesn't mean it doesn't have a valid place.
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah - I think we're in agreement.
| cedilla wrote:
| The space on posters is extremely limited. You condense
| several person-months into a few sentences and graphics,
| usually fewer words than OP used.
|
| At the same time, the research is usually very narrow. It's
| hard but possible to convey a general concept in few words,
| but if you study the properties of a subclass of a subclass
| of a subclass of a subclass of organic chemicals, you
| simply have to use terms of art. You don't have the space
| to explain what a ligand is, or what paramagnetism is, and
| you don't need to anyway, because your audience likely
| understands the concepts better than you do.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think that makes total sense for a poster.
|
| It's when talking to people that I've noticed a
| difference. Some people have the jargon, but I can ask
| questions and learn from them because they can explain
| the underlying ideas.
|
| Some just hide behind the jargon and can't answer
| questions - often in the latter the impression I get is
| that their actual knowledge is pretty shallow. It's not
| always the case (sometimes people are just bad at
| communication in general), but it's the case often enough
| that it's a signal.
|
| It's also something I've noticed more in academia for
| whatever reason. My off the cuff guess is that both some
| cultural pressure towards signaling intelligence and
| prestige is coupled with being hard to understand, and
| that it's easier to hide with bullshit in academia than
| in industry. Not that you can't hide in industry too, but
| entire fields of academia that were total bullshit
| sometimes perpetuate for decades - companies typically
| die earlier than that.
| varjag wrote:
| Yes. Yes they would. Don't make snap judgments about fields
| you lack competence in.
| superposeur wrote:
| Don't intend to make snap judgment (despite my unfortunate
| tone) -- the question is a genuine one. Does it really have
| to be so inaccessible from start to finish? Maybe yes is
| the answer, that's the nature of the thing. Physics is not
| like that, for instance.
| gilleain wrote:
| I think its the nature of the thing. Some fields are easy
| to 'big picture' - like physics (apart from quantum-
| level?) or biology. If they relate to everyday experience
| then that is surely easier.
|
| Chemistry often deals with the everyday, of course -
| drugs, paint,fuels, cooking even. However it can also
| deal with very obscure reactions where the details are
| entirely technical.
|
| For example, there are whole papers dedicated to "this is
| the detailed series of steps we found to make this
| obscure chemical (X) that is difficult to make". That
| could be summarised as just "we made X!" - not super
| interesting, by itself...
| [deleted]
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I have similar problems in my own field where an academic
| could EASILY explain the core of a problem in a few bullet
| points, but instead will try to cram 20 lines of dense
| mathematical formulation in size 8 font on a slide. It is
| just bad communication. That should be left in the white
| paper, sure, but not at a conference where 3/4 the room just
| starts reading email. I try to explain this to academics all
| the time when they're trying to communicate with industry,
| but few seem to get it.
|
| Keep in mind, I'm not saying that's the same as what we're
| talking about in this post, but I thought you'd be interested
| in the personal anecdote. Clear communication is an art that
| takes years to master. Unfortunately, a lot of academic
| papers are not meant for a general audience or even an
| audience of non academic experts.
| superposeur wrote:
| Yes that's a good point, clear communication is hard in any
| field. I want to say to everyone, at least make an effort,
| though, please?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| What a great explanation. Id like to share this old paper on
| using radio frequency modulation of catalytic activity. Seems
| like such a neat idea--that chemical catalysts might be
| emulated through radio waves. Are there better examples or
| better ways of thinking about this?
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000926149...
| gilleain wrote:
| > So now there's a link between biological catalysis and
| artificial catalysis that didn't exist before.
|
| Not sure I understand that point. There are plenty of enzymatic
| reactions that rely on metals. Presumably the point is that
| there exist non-metalloenzymes that catalyse enantiospecific
| reactions?
| siver_john wrote:
| I believe the point is more from a relatively "simple"
| molecule you can have catalytic reactions that don't require
| metal or complex protein systems. When applied to the
| observation about life means that random organic compounds
| could have started selective catalytic reactions which could
| have given rise to more complex systems which then give rise
| to the building blocks of life or something.
|
| This is me speculating on the meaning of the original
| comment, my knowledge of abiogenesis is lacking and I know
| RNA can do some enzymatic reactions which are also organic
| compounds.
| gilleain wrote:
| That makes sense, thanks.
|
| With regards to abiogenesis, that is a wonderful area for
| wild speculation. I say that having done a tiny bit of that
| myself :)
|
| Certainly it would be helpful to have small-molecule
| catalysts to bootstrap life into having polymer catalysts.
|
| I just do not think it matters much about excluding metals,
| since there were bound to be sufficient dissolved metal
| ions floating around. Of course, whether they were the
| 'right' metals and in a suitable oxidation state and so on
| is a different question.
| siver_john wrote:
| I think the importance of organocatalysts besides being
| potentially less "harsh" is that they can also be more
| selective in what reactions they allow, which would be
| important in getting to those polymers. For example most
| of the amino acids in biology are L-enantiomers. So the
| reaction in the primordial soup would require catalysts
| which would bias towards that specific shape, where as a
| metalocatalyst may be less specific and generate both the
| L and R enantiomers at equal or near equal rate. Also it
| could also be that metalocatalysts generate side products
| at a higher rate such that it consumes say some of your
| amino acids unhelpfully. So you may be able to think
| about it as an intermediate step of
| metals->organocatalysts->polymer catalysts.
|
| Full Disclosure: Am not a chemist but work with chemists,
| one of which follows MacMillan closely. And have sat
| through a lot of presentations looking at how different
| catalysts affect selectivity of products.
| localhost wrote:
| A bit more detail about how catalysts speed up chemical
| reactions - to get from products to reactants you need to climb
| an energy barrier to get to something called the "rate-
| determining transition state". What catalysts do is stabilize
| or reduce the amount of energy (called activation energy)
| required to reach this transition state, and by doing so, the
| reaction goes faster. The stability is achieved through
| interactions between the rate determining transition state and
| the catalyst. Sometimes the catalyst causes a change in the
| reaction mechanism leading to a different rate-determining
| transition state as well.
|
| EDIT: pretty sure this was Ben List's first paper on this idea:
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja994280y
|
| David MacMillan's first paper on this idea:
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja000092s
| hi41 wrote:
| Layperson here. It's my understanding that energy can neither
| created not destroyed. So if a reaction needs more energy
| otherwise, then how do catalysts provide that extra energy
| needed for the reaction yet not fail energy conservancy law?
| ace2358 wrote:
| I don't think they provide the energy, they change the
| required energy for a reaction to occur. My understanding
| is that is can happen due to the physical structure of the
| catalyst changing the electronic configuration of the
| molecules being reacted. I think often instead of the two
| molecules coming into contact and reacting, the two
| molecules and the catalyst come into contact. It's a whole
| different reaction, but the catalyst molecule doesn't
| change its composition and is left unchanged after the
| reaction.
|
| I guess maybe a terrible analogy would be you're trying to
| cross a flat field but there is a large group of animals,
| say, cows in the way. You'd never be able to get through
| the crowd of cows without exerting a lot of energy. Then
| suddenly a dog, catalyst, come over and starts shooing off
| the cows. Now the cows have moved out of the way and the
| flat field is clear. You can now make the journey while
| expending less energy.
|
| Hmm maybe someone else can explain it better!
| loufe wrote:
| Fantastic summary, thank you for taking the time.
| hobofan wrote:
| > This happens because some molecules have 3D structure that's
| different than its mirror image.
|
| I assume that you meant to say that that one possible product
| _is_ the mirror image of the other product.
| feoren wrote:
| No, I think they meant what they said: we can encounter the
| situation where 50% of products need to be separated out only
| because some molecules are chiral. (Actually their comment
| was extremely carefully (and well-) worded for a social media
| comment!)
|
| See, in general your statement that reaction products can be
| mirror images of each other is true for most of the chemical
| reactions humanity has been able to produce in a lab/factory,
| yet many reactions don't require separating out 50% of the
| products because _it doesn 't matter_ that they're mirror
| images if they're non-chiral molecules. Think of the (non-
| chiral) letter H: a right-handed and left-handed letter H are
| the same -- one can always be rotated to match the other.
|
| The only time it matters that most of our chemical reactions
| can produce either left- or right-handed molecules is when
| these molecules are actually different, meaning they cannot
| be rotated to match each other. Think of the (chiral in 2D)
| letter L. There's no way I can rotate the letter L in 2D
| space to make it match its mirror image. (Of course I can if
| I'm allowed to rotate it through 3D space.)
| hobofan wrote:
| I know how enantiomeres work (chemistry background), I just
| found the quoted sentence really confusing to read for some
| reason.
|
| I think the original press release already expressed it
| well in an easy to understand way with the classic hand
| example:
|
| > where two different molecules can form, which - just like
| our hands - are each other's mirror image
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| What it's like to win the prize to ensure you will be remembered
| forever.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/04/science/where...
| cecilpl wrote:
| I'm surprised that it's only MacMillan and List for
| organocatalysis. There's plenty of others that come to mind, like
| Jacobsen.
|
| Regarding MacMillan, his student used proline (which opened the
| whole proline organocatalysis area) and he said he had "no idea
| why she did that experiment". He definitely guides his students
| well.
| regitempus wrote:
| Can you elaborate on your second paragraph or link to the full
| story?
| newacct81 wrote:
| I'm confused how this is related to climate change?
| karol wrote:
| It doesn't.
| siver_john wrote:
| I think you may be thinking of the physics Nobel Prize which is
| work related to climate change, the chemistry has no direct
| relation.
| coldcode wrote:
| Sometimes I wish I had started/completed my Chemistry PhD 4
| decades ago, about the right time for a Nobel...
|
| Instead I wrote code the whole time. No Nobel for that.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| there are probably tons of people who completed a chemistry phd
| in that time frame who will never get a nobel.
| belval wrote:
| In this case "a ton" is an understatement, getting a Nobel
| requires the right mix of excellent research, significant
| discovery and a healthy dose of luck/timing.
|
| Inverting the comment that you were replying to it's akin to
| saying "I wish I had finished my software engineer degree and
| made a billion dollar startup instead of getting a chemistry
| PhD".
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If we assume the average weight of a scientist is 80kg, there
| are 12.5 chemistry PhDs in a ton.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-10-06 23:01 UTC)