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Chemical
Education International, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 1-5, Published in August
3, 2001
Message
from Nobel Laureates to Young People (2)
Sir Harold
Kroto
University
of Sussex, England
(Nobel
Laureate, 1996)
Interviewed
on August 7. 2000 in Budapest by Professor Yoshito Takeuchi
Professor
Takeuchi (T)
Professor Kroto, thank you very much for kindly accepting
our request to be interviewed on behalf of IUPAC/CTC which is
going to publish a new journal not only for teachers, but for
young students and citizens. First of all, I would like to ask
you how you became interested in Chemistry and when you made up
your mind to be a chemist. Did you receive encouragement from
someone--some of your teachers for instance?
Professor
Kroto (K)
I was encouraged to do as well as possible at science by my
father who was a refugee and felt that it was better to work hard
at science than anything else in order to get a job. He was very
pragmatic. My main interests were not only science but also art
and graphics. I was good at drawing and did reasonably well at science--chemistry,
physics, and mathematics. When it was time to go to university,
it was natural for me to go and do a degree in the subject which
I was best at which was chemistry, physics, and the sciences. I
didn't make any "decision." The decision was made for
me because there didn't seem to be any other opportunities. I think
there are so many more opportunities for young students today that
I would have, perhaps, done architecture or design graphics. Then,
there just didn't seem to be a career prospect to do art or to become
an artist, so few people could. So I didn't make a "decision,"
I just went to university to do chemistry and then I got a very
good degree and I decided to do a Ph.D. After I got my Ph.D., I
wanted to stay at university for a while. I was art editor of the
university magazine and I wanted to continue to do that. My chemistry
Ph.D. enabled me to continue to work at university and pursue my
other interests as well. Later, I wanted to live abroad, so I did
a post doc in chemistry on spectroscopy in Canada. However, the
most important thing to me at that time was to live abroad and to
expand my experiences. Even so, I still didn't make any "decision."
I mean, the "decision" was simply "you're walking
along the road and you follow the road the way it is." As far
as the influence of teachers is concerned, I certainly had two very
good chemistry teachers whose teaching I enjoyed, but I also enjoyed
the subjects of physics, English geography and the art--particularly
the art because the teacher there recognized that I had some talent
in this area. I didn't even make a "decision" when I came
back [from Canada]. When opportunities open up, you accept them.
I was offered a position in chemistry at University of Sussex in
England and I came back to England. Even then, I just hadn't "fully
decided." So, I tried the position at university to see if
I would be successful and, as it turned out, I was moderately successful.
T.
Initially, you said you were a spectroscopist. How did you
get involved in the research of fullerene?
K.
Oh, that's much more complicated. Originally I did a Ph.D. in
spectroscopy and pursued spectroscopy in my postdoctoral work. When
I came back to Sussex I continued to do research in spectroscopy.
My first work was really using spectroscopy to detect new molecules
on carbon double bonds to phosphorus, so I was involved in phosphorus/carbon
chemistry. Then, I started to study carbon chain molecules because
I was interested in molecular dynamics--the way in which chains
vibrate or rub molecules and rotate--and that led, naturally, to
discovery of carbon molecules in space by radio astronomy. After
trying to understand how these molecules came to be in space I began
to think that they were produced in carbon stars. It was in trying
to reproduce the conditions in a carbon star that led to the experiments
that uncovered the existence of C60. So, the discovery
of the existence of C60 was an accident.
T.
Well, but even if it was an accident such an accident could
be achieved only by the very vigilant, well prepared person with
a well prepared mind.
K.
That's true. I mean, it's fair to say that the experiment had
been carried out by two other groups and they missed the discovery.
Two other groups did the same experiment and overlooked C60,
so, I think, although it was an accident as far as I was concerned,
it wasn't an accident as far as the "discovery." The discovery
was going to be made. It was clearly an interesting carbon vaporization.
It was a very important area and was becoming more and more important
so, if we hadn't discovered it, someone else would have. The accident
was that we did. Yes, we were vigilant. We were trying to
understand what was going on. We weren't looking for this molecule--this
was a big surprise--but it's fair to say we noticed it and that's
important.
T.
Well, people say that C60 is probably the most
important compound found in the 20th century. What do you expect
to be the future of your compound in the 21st century?
K.
Certainly, I wouldn't say it's the most important compound of
the 20th century. I think it's an interesting compound and it's
certainly important because it tells us something about carbon chemistry
and materials that we didn't understand before. In fact, it's important
from a fundamental point of view in that it explains the behavior--the
dynamics and static structural behavior--of sheet materials. That's
very general. If one is to say what's the most important molecule
to be discovered in the 20th century, the most important molecule
has to be DNA. There haven't been any major applications of C60
fullerenes so far and, perhaps, I'm not the best person to predict
what those applications might be because I'm a fundamental scientist.
If one thinks of the very unusual electrical and electronic properties
of the molecule and the nanotubes (which Iijima discovered) which
also have very interesting electronic properties and are related
to the electrical and electronic properties of C60, it's
in this area, probably, in the electrical and electronic applications
of C60 and the nanotubes where the first uses and valuable
applications might lie.
T.
It opens some entirely new fields.
K.
Well, I think so. I mean, one could imagine that C60--species
related to C60--may be components in the next generation
of computers--microscopic or nanoscale computing devices. But there
are still some massive technical problems to be overcome before
that can be realized at this stage.
T.
Returning to the subject of the promotion of chemistry or
science in general, you mentioned in your lecture the literacy
in science among citizens. Although we have tried quite a number
of things in Japan and although the government has invested a
bit of money in your project, we feel, generally speaking, that
the general public looses its interest in science. What sort of
things would you suggest to remedy that?
K.
Well, I think first of all, they may have lost it before they
even had it. I think that, just as fluency in a language is acquired
very early on, so I think that fluency in the understanding of mathematics
and an understanding of analyses and experimental techniques and
curiosity and discovery occur very early on. I have a feeling that
it's probably by the age of 4, 5, or 6 that some important developments
occur which may not be achievable later on. Just as language fluency
becomes more and more difficult as one gets older so it may well
be true of some aspects of scientific understand and scientific
culture. How you do something about it, I don't know because we've
been trying to educate our children for a long time and we still
don't know how to do this. I actually think it would be very good
for children to be taken back to the 19th century to let them relearn
and find out just how hard it was. I think the big change that has
come since the war is that young children now who are growing up
today have not seen the quantum leap forward that science and engineering
have achieved for us. They seem to think that they've always had
television sets, they've always had refrigerators. My generation
didn't have refrigerators, didn't have a car, didn't have a television
set, maybe didn't have a radio, didn't have toilets inside, didn't
have decent sanitation, and didn't have fast food. All these things
are the result of the exploitation of science and technology by
society. It's got to such a stage that I think that the average
child today just thinks these things have always been there and,
therefore, has no respect for the technology and less respect for
those who created it. That's got serious implications because we
have some massive problems that must be overcome to survive in the
21st century.
T.
I understand that you expended lot of energy on the Vega project.
When did you start and how much energy did you expend?
K.
More now than in the past because it started very slowly. I
just made one or two programs and gradually got money together and
then employed professional teams to do the programs except for _____,
which I basically engineered myself in the studios in Sussex. By
and large, I always tried to employ professional film people to
do the program which is, of course, expensive now. In the future,
it should be possible to do programs of this kind more inexpensively
because it can be broadcast on the web through the internet and
high band width. I think this is a major step forward because this
capability allows individuals to make programs. With all this technology,
recordings like we are doing here can be done with several people
and you could actually publish the interview on the web.
T.
Do we have to ask the copyright owner for translations of
the Vega project?
K.
No, all our programs are copyright free.
T.
Oh, is that right?
K.
Yes. We sell them intending that you might broadcast them yourself
on the Internet. We will be broadcasting them and we would like
to exchange our programs for those of other people. I'm looking
toward networking these programs and I want them all to be freely
available and free of copyright problems.
T.
Of course, it's impossible for Japanese teachers and their
students to appreciate (to understand) anything written in English,
so we have to translate it into Japanese.
K.
Well, yes, but that problem should die away because in Japan
you are going to start teaching English.
T.
Well, that project seems to be quite hopeless. Not very effective,
actually.
K.
I suppose because you have to start language education much
earlier. So, Japanese-speaking children should watch television
programs in English and English-speaking children should watch them
in Japanese.
T.
Well, yes, if they are more used to English, that would make
it slightly different.
K.
Sure.
T.
Finally, could you offer words of encouragement to young students
who are interested in chemistry, but who have not decided yet
to be chemists?
K.
There are some aspects of chemistry that today's students should
certainly find interesting. For example, genetics is biological
chemistry. It's very exciting and the possibility of using biochemical
techniques for solving some of the major ecological problems we
encounter today looks extremely exciting. There are fantastic possibilities
in the future for using new materials. Nanotechnology, which is
chemistry in that you are making structures at the atomic molecular
level, is getting to be recognized as a major field. I think I would
be particularly keen on going into the area of genetics where one
has the possibility of developing new approaches to structure formation--building
enzymes that create particular molecular structures. For example,
the possibility of producing wheat that will fix it's own nitrogen.
If you could genetically modify wheat to fix it's own nitrogen,
you would save 20% of the world's fuel resources and you would reduce
the carbon dioxide concentration increase by about 20%. In that
respect, chemistry is as exciting now as it ever was. The possibilities
for exciting research in chemistry are endless and I would encourage
students to learn as much as they can about the various subdisciplines
of chemistry in order to discover the area that presents a challenge
to them.
T.
Thank you very much, Professor.
K.
My pleasure.
This
transcription was done by Ms. Rita Wilkinson, Administrative Associate
for Profesor J. J. Lagowski.
Last
updated
15.05.02
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