Kurzweil
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- May 25, 2011
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Austin (KXAN) — “No, I didn’t anticipate anything,” said 97-year-old University of Texas at Austin engineering professor John B. Goodenough on a call with reporters Wednesday, the same day he had been awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with two other scientists for the development of the lithium-ion battery.
“It was a very eventful day,” Goodenough laughed. “That’s all I can say.”
He is the oldest person to have received the Nobel Prize.
UT Austin explained that Goodenough was in London Wednesday receiving another award: the Copley Medal from the Royal Society.
The call with the press was delayed a half-hour because Goodenough “had to put his head down for a quick nap,” a press officer with the Royal Society explained. But after that nap, the professor was jovial and refreshed while talking with reporters.
Goodenough shares the award with M. Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York at Binghamton and Akira Yoshino of Meijo University in Japan.
The total prize amount is 9 million Swedish Krona, which converts to just over $900,000. Each of the three scientists sharing this year’s award, including Goodenough, will get one-third of the share. At a ceremony in Stockholm in December, Goodenough will receive more than $300,000 for this award as well as a medal and a diploma.
“My share of the Nobel prize will go to my University [of Texas at Austin] to support the people who work there,” Goodenough told reporters on the call.
When asked how he thought UT Austin would react to his award, Goodenough replied with a hearty chuckle. “Well, I hope they still keep me employed.”
KXAN asked Goodenough how this award stacked up in the list of things he’s most proud of in life.
“What am I most proud of?” Goodenough said. “I don’t know, I would say, all my friends.”
He laughed again.
“You know I ‘ve had an interesting career and I’ve wrote a book saying, ‘Witness to Grace,'” said Goodenough (who has, in fact, authored a book called Witness to Grace). “And I don’t know whether it’s chance or grace.”
