Richard Smalley

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Richard Errett Smalley (June 6, 1943October 28, 2005) was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene ("buckyballs") (with Robert Curl, also a professor of chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, a professor at the University of Sussex).

Smalley was born in Akron, Ohio and attended Hope College before transferring to the University of Michigan where he received his B.S. in 1965. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1973. He completed postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago, with Lennard Wharton and Donald Levy, where he was a pioneer in the development supersonic beam laser spectroscopy.

Smalley's latest research was focused on carbon nanotubes, specifically focusing on the chemical synthesis side of nanotube research. He is well-known for his group's invention of the high-pressure carbon monoxide (HiPco) method of producing large batches of high-quality nanotubes. Smalley spun off his work into a company, Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. and associated nanotechnologies. He was an outspoken critic of the idea of molecular nanomachines, as advocated by K. Eric Drexler. Contrary to popular belief, he was not a critic of molecular nanotechnology on any moral or ethical grounds, but rather, Dr. Smalley believed chemical nanotechnology processes are more realistic and thus much more deserving of funding.

Smalley died on October 28, 2005, at the age of 62, after a six-year struggle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Contents

Education

Honors

Fellowships

  • Harold W. Dodds Fellow, Princeton University, 1973
  • Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, 1978 - 1980, Fellow of the American Physical Society, 1987

Awards and prizes

External links

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