The Hindu Business Line : `Chemistry is like 1,2,3'

AHEAD OF HIS TIMES: Nobel laureate Harold Walter Kroto during an interaction with students at the Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad on Thursday. Prof. Kroto, who won the Chemistry Nobel in 1996 for the discovery of `buckyballs' (hollow football-shaped carbon molecules with the potential for extensive manipulation), received the Birla Centre's `Life Time Achievement Award.' — A. Roy Chowdhury

Hyderabad , Oct. 28

CHEMISTRY, all of it, in 30 seconds! For 1996 Nobel laureate Prof. Harold Walter Kroto, chemistry, or for that matter science, can be taught in just 30 seconds.

"It's as easy as the numbers 0, 1, 2 and 3," he told a gathering of schoolchildren.

Prof. Kroto, who was in the city to receive the Birla Science Centre's Life Time Achievement in Science award here on Thursday, demystified science and told the children to take to science to solve the world's problems.

From the 0-1-2-3 premise he went on to build the Periodic Table, which forms the basis for the whole of chemistry and physics.

In a lively presentation, the "buckyballs" veteran unravelled the world of molecules that take up complex activities.

"Haemoglobin is a fantastic molecule. It is very clever, receptive in the lungs and doing different functions elsewhere," he said. On the unfolding revolution of nanotechnologies, he said: "It is nothing but a new name for 21st century chemistry." The technology promises great innovations in the fields of construction, communications and medicine, he added.

Strongly advocating the use of DDT, the professor regretted that the ban on the pesticide had left millions of people dead every year. "There is no evidence that DDT killed a single individual. But there is evidence that it saved the lives of half a billion people worldwide," he said.

Prof. Kroto, who won the Nobel for discovering a new form of carbon called C 60 Buckminsterfullerene, got a variety of answers when he asked the children what they would like to become when they grew up — lawyers, geologists, archaeologists, doctors, scientists, computer engineers...

When it was his turn to answer the children's questions, he humbly submitted that he had not expected such queries. One student wanted to know whether nano material was biodegradable, to which the Nobel laureate answered in the negative, while another wondered why some nuclear scientists misuse their knowledge to build weapons of mass destruction.

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