The official statement of the Nobel Prize reads: "They have created appropriate conditions for a wireless and fossil fuel-free society, thus bringing the greatest benefits to mankind."
We are all familiar with lithium-ion batteries, that is, batteries in smart phones, laptops, cameras, other mobile digital products and electric vehicles.
Light weight, rechargeable and powerful.
It can be said that without lithium ion batteries, there would be no such extensive and rapid development of electronic intelligence society.
Just thinking that the mobile phone is always dead makes people collapse! )
Therefore, these scientists won the prize, which is worthy of the name and is widely expected.
Among them, 97-year-old "father of lithium battery" John Good became the oldest Nobel Prize winner in history.
Old man, hardcore!
However, Goodenough was not a person with clear lofty aspirations since he was a child.
Although his name is good enough, almost all his life has been driven by all kinds of accidents that are not good enough.
Goodnow 1922 was born in Jena, Germany, and spent his childhood in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
His childhood was not wonderful, and his parents had bad feelings and didn't care about him. Although his family is well-off, the family atmosphere is very depressed and tense.
In his autobiography, he mentioned several relationships that are important to him: brothers and sisters, a dog, a domestic servant and a former neighbor.
But his parents are not on this list.
He even suffered from dyslexia for a time, and always ran into the jungle alone, observing animals and plants all day, catching butterflies and groundhogs.
I was once forbidden to eat at the table because I skinned a skunk (weasel). I guess it's because he smells terrible. )
Then Goodenough's parents divorced.
Goodnow studied hard and was admitted to Yale University (equivalent to Tsinghua Peking University in China).
But when he reported that the school started, his father only gave him $35.
At that time, Yale's tuition was $900 a year.
Goodnow gritted her teeth and walked out of the house with $35.
Today you ignore me, tomorrow I will make you unattainable.
Since then, Goodnow has never asked his parents for a penny. He supports himself by tutoring rich children and doing part-time jobs.
/kloc-Yale university in the 0/930 s
When he was studying at Yale, he changed his major very carelessly.
When I was a freshman, I studied classical literature and transferred to the philosophy department. I studied chemistry to get credit, and then transferred to the math department. When I graduated, I got a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
He chose mathematics because he was still dyslexic at that time, so he ruled out all the majors that he had to read too much.
Is Yale University too indulgent of students?
After Goodnow graduated, World War II broke out.
Work is impossible. He must join the army to fight.
Ben was going to die for his country, so his superiors sent him to an island in the Pacific Ocean to collect meteorological data.
The front line is in full swing. He is as quiet as a chicken on the island and can only work, read and study.
After the war, in order to resettle veterans, the US Congress passed the American Soldier's Rights Act in 1944, giving veterans various benefits.
With the help of this bill, Goodenough got the opportunity to study physics at the University of Chicago. (I changed my major again! )
Good enough during the service.
The disadvantage of changing majors is that he has to take some undergraduate science courses to make up for it.
Although he is diligent and studious, he is ridiculed by a professor: anyone who has made any achievements in the field of physics has already finished it at your age.
Indeed, there were many geniuses in that era. Einstein put forward the theory of relativity at the age of 26, Edison lit the incandescent lamp at the age of 32, and Madame Curie won the Nobel Prize at the age of 36.
When Dr Goodnow graduated, he was 30 years old.
Fortunately, his doctoral supervisor is Clarence Zener, the inventor of Zener diode and a leader in the industry.
Under his guidance, Goodnow laid a solid theoretical foundation.
After graduating from the University of Chicago, he was recommended to Lincoln Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on the study of solid-state magnetism and making contributions to the development of random access memory.
This technology is the later computer memory.
Goodenough used to be relaxed in front of office workers, but the accident happened again.
1969, the us congress banned the use of military funds for research projects unrelated to specific military functions.
Goodnow's laboratory is funded by the US Air Force, but his research project has nothing to do with it.
So he had a midlife crisis and lost his job.
Physicists must eat properly, pay off the mortgage and save money for their children's tuition. He was so eager to find a home anywhere that he almost went to Iran before the revolution.
There was an oil crisis at this time.
Seeing people standing in long queues at gas stations, Goodenough is worried about the future energy use of mankind, which is a big problem.
"That's why I turned to studying energy materials and was invited to Oxford University. At this point, I officially became a chemist. " He said in a future interview.
Therefore, after receiving the invitation from Oxford University, Goodnow began his energy research.
Yes, the father of lithium batteries began to study how to make batteries at the age of 54.
Oxford university period
1976, the year Goodenough moved to Oxford, M. Stanley Whittingham invented the rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
Yes, Wittingham is the second winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
However, although Wittingham's battery is a leap in the battery industry, there is a serious problem: overcharge is easy to explode. This means that this technology can not really be put into large-scale commercial use.
Fortunately, four years later, Goodenough discovered lithium cobaltate.
The lithium-ion battery made of lithium cobaltate electrode is safe and reliable, which can make the lithium-ion battery have smaller volume, larger capacity and more stable use mode.
The principle is as follows:
You got it? It would be great if I don't understand, because neither do I.
In a word, this invention is awesome.
Lithium batteries can be put into practical application market, not only for compact equipment, but also for large equipment.
But because of the previous explosion, no one wants to touch this field. Oxford didn't even want to help apply for a patent and handed it over to a government laboratory. Later the patent was bought by Sony of Japan.
199 1 year, Sony made the world's first commercial lithium-ion battery by adding a lithium cobaltate cathode from Goodenough and an anode developed by akira Yoshino (the third winner).
In less than ten years, lithium-ion batteries have swept other competitive products in the market: mobile phones, cameras, computers and countless devices are equipped with lithium cobalt oxide lithium-ion batteries invented by Goodenough.
Today, the global market scale of lithium-ion batteries has reached more than $35 billion.
Goodenough didn't get any benefit from it because it didn't apply for a patent.
He didn't care much about it: "I didn't know it would be so valuable when I did it anyway." I only know that this is what I should do. "
Big bosses who treat money like dirt, please accept my worship (if only I could get the patent right. Ah ah ~ ~)
Originally, being a professor at Oxford was a respectable thing. And Oxford has a compulsory retirement policy at the age of 65. As long as he stays until he is 65, Goodenough can receive a generous pension, take his grandchildren during the day and dance in the square at night.
However, in order to continue his research, at the age of 64, he jumped ship and went to the University of Texas.
The old horse lurks, aiming at a thousand miles.
Grandpa, I'm only 64 years old. I am young, and I have a lot of electricity.
Sure enough, the old man stood by as long as the battery he studied, charged for 5 minutes and worked for 30 years.
At the age of 75, he made a new material-lithium ferrous phosphate, which is much cheaper and more stable than cobalt and is often used in power tools.
At the age of 90, he began to study solid-state batteries. Solid-state batteries are not easy to burn, the energy density is at least three times that of current lithium-ion batteries, and the cycle life is long. At the same time, the charging speed has been greatly shortened from several hours to only a few minutes.
If successfully commercialized, the future of electric vehicles will be completely rewritten.
At the age of 96, Goodnow expressed two wishes:
First of all, he hopes to live to be the last doctoral student with him to get his doctorate. Just in case, he won't accept doctoral students for four years.
Secondly, he hopes to live to see his research change the world for the second time.
At the age of 97, Goodnow won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
However, when the Committee announced the winner, it was unable to get in touch with him.
Because Goodnow was in London at that time, accepting the Copley Medal of the Royal Society-the oldest science medal in the world, he didn't have time to answer the phone of the Nobel Committee.
As the name implies, as long as you are good enough, the Nobel Prize will give you an award, and you have to wait in line with the number plate of love.
In an interview with Nature later, he said: "I am very grateful to receive this honor, which is great. But I am still the old me. "
Up to now (20 19), 97-year-old Goodnow is still a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Texas at Austin.
For his ups and downs, magnificent life, he only used one sentence to describe:
"Some of us are like turtles, walking slowly and struggling all the way, and we still can't find a way out in our thirties. But the tortoise knows that he must go on. "
Father, I salute you.