67.  American physicist and metallurgist Alan J. Heeger has conducted primary research into semiconducting and metallic polymers, and discovered in 1977 (with [[Alan G. MacDiarmid]] and [[Hideki Shirakawa]]) that certain plastics can conduct electricity. His work showed that polymers which consist alternately of single and double bonds between the carbon atoms can carry electricity efficiently if the polymers are "doped", meaning that electrons are removed through oxidation or introduced through reduction. Conductive plastics have potential applications in solar cells, as anti-static materials for photographic film, as windows engineered to block sunlight, and as polymer-based light-emitting displays screens for devices from cellular phones to television screens.

Heeger, MacDiarmid, and Shirakawa shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000, and Heeger has conducted related research into conjugating polymers for generation of white light, highly conductive organic solids, light-emitting diodes and electrochemical cells, lasers, and photoluminescence. He has suggested that with financial backing and access to 30 miles of land in the Mojave Desert, he could construct polymer-based solar collectors that "would be able to meet all of America’s energy needs — forever".

66.  Egyptian-American chemist Ahmed H. Zewail developed a new way of using ultra-short pulsing laser flashes to observe and isolate chemical reactions down to the femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second). His pioneering methodology, called femtochemistry, has revealed previously unknown aspects of the transition states of chemical reactions, and brought Zewail the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999. He has also studied 4D electron microscopy.

65.  American physicist Daniel C. Tsui discovered (with [[Horst L. Störmer]]) of a previously unknown form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations, called the fractional quantum [[Edwin Hall|Hall]] effect (FQHE). Tsui was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1998, sharing the honor with Störmer and [[Robert B. Laughlin]], who detailed the physics that made the effect make sense. More recently Tsui's work has centered on the electrical properties of thin films and microstructures of semiconductors and solid state physics.

64.  American physicist Horst L. Störmer was co-discoverer of the fractional quantum [[Edwin Hall|Hall]] effect (FQHE), a bizarre variation of [[Klaus von Klitzing]]'s quantum Hall effect, wherein electrons, under conditions of extreme cold electrons and certain magnetic effects, behave as though they have only a fraction of their ordinary electric charge. Laughlin and [[Daniel C. Tsui]] noted this effect in 1982, and it was theoretically explained by [[Robert B. Laughlin]] the following year, leading to the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1998, shared by these three scientists. Störmer conducted his Nobel Prizewinning research which employed at Bell Laboratories, and now teaches and studies at Columbia University, where his current research focuses on the physics of lower-dimensional systems.

63.  American physicist Robert B. Laughlin explained the fractional quantum [[Edwin Hall|Hall]] effect (FQHE), which was discovered by [[Horst L. Störmer]] and [[Daniel C. Tsui]] in 1982. FQHE is a physical phenomenon manifested when a system at low temperatures and in strong magnetic fields seemingly misbehaves, with electrons forming into quasiparticles with charge smaller than the elementary charge. Laughlin demonstrated that in a powerful magnetic field, electrons can condense to effectively form a "quantum fluid" akin to a similar phenomenon that occurs in liquid helium and superconductors. Laughlin, Störmer, and Tsui shared the highest honor in science, the Nobel Prize, in 1998.

62.  The parents of condensed matter theorist Walter Kohn were killed in Hitler's Holocaust, after they sent their teenaged son to safety in England. Because of his German passport, however, young Kohn was held in internment camps as World War II raged, first on the Isle of Man and later in Canada, where he became a citizen. He studied at the University of Toronto, and came to America to find work as a physicist. In 1964 he developed density-functional theory in quantum chemistry, superseding previous theorems that required data on the motion of every individual electron in a molecule in order to determine the bonding in atoms and for mapping chemical reactions, and instead showed that reliable conclusions can be reached without this data provided that the average number of electrons at a specific location is known. With the new generation of more powerful computers, his density-functional theory has been invaluable in research into the electronic structure of materials, and allowed the complicated mathematics of quantum mechanics to be applied the study of chemical bonding between atoms. Kohn won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (shared with [[John A. Pople]]) in 1998.

61.  Physicist William D. Phillips has studied and advanced the scientific art of supercooling atoms for trapping and examination. Cooling slows the speed of atoms' movements, and extreme cooling to near absolute zero allows the atomic structure of gases to be slowed and trapped without allowing the gas to condense andliquefy or solidify. Working with the laser-based "atom trap" designed by [[Steven Chu]] but modifying its parameters, Phillips was able to obtain temperatures even lower than those predicted and achieved by Chu's team. Phillips' results were so remarkable and far beyond what physicists thought would be feasible, he said that he could not believe it. French physicist [[Claude Cohen-Tannoudji]] derived an explanation for Phillips' findings, and Chu, Phillips, and Cohen-Tannoudji shared the Nobel Prize in 1997.

Phillips has worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the National Bureau of Standards) for his entire career, and also taught at the University of Maryland College Park since 1992. In addition to his Nobel Prizewinning work, he has studied atomic-gas Bose-Einstein condensates, atomic physics analogs of condensed matter systems, atoms in coherent deBroglie-wave atom optics, collisions of ultracold atoms, the magnetic moment of the proton in H2O, matter that exists only under extreme cold conditions, optical lattices, optical tweezers, quantum information with single-atom qubits, and ultracold Rydberg atoms and plasmas.

60.  French physicist Claude Cohen-Tannoudji studied under [[Alfred Kastler]], and building on the work of [[Steven Chu]] and [[William D. Phillips]], refined the process of optical cooling and developed laser traps to isolate single atoms through a process called Sisyphus cooling. Also called polarization gradient cooling, this process takes advantage of the phenomenon by which atoms in certain states "climb uphill", or optically pumped into another state, which effectively reduces the kinetic energy of the bombarded atoms and brings sub-Doppler temperatures.

Cohen-Tannoudji's work has allowed increasingly detailed study of atomic structure, and is seen as a bridge between classical and quantum physics. With Chu and Phillips, he won the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics, and he has also studied Bose-Einstein condensation, photon correlations, quantum electrodynamics, quantum interference effects, radiative forces and corrections, and resonance fluorescence.

59.  American physicist Stephen Chu developed a new means to study the interaction between matter and radiation, by using laser technology to supercool and manipulate atoms. Under normal conditions atoms are perpetually in motion at speeds of up to 2,480 miles (4,000 kilometers) per hour, but as temperatures are reduced to near absolute zero the atoms are greatly slowed, making it much easier to isolate, capture, and study individual atoms. Chu first demonstrated his process of atom-trapping, using three pairs of orthogonal counter-propagating laser beams to slow the atomic motion, in 1985, while employed at Bell Laboratories. The process is also called "optical molasses".

Chu won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, shared with [[Claude Cohen-Tannoudji]] and [[William D. Phillips]]. He later taught at Stanford University and administered the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was appointed US Secretary of Energy by President-elect [[Barack Obama]] on 15 December 2008, and took office on 21 January 2009. In accepting the post, Chu said that he sees global climate change as "the greatest challenge facing science", and that he hopes to strengthen the Department of Energy's support for renewable energy sources that will not exacerbate global warming.

58.  German biochemist Karl Lohmann discovered adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the key source of energy in all living things, in 1929. He isolated ATP from muscle and liver extracts, and originally called his discovery "inosinic acid". He worked for several years under [[Otto Meyerhof]], Nobel laureate for his elucidation of the glycogen-lactic acid cycle, but Lohmann never received Nobel honors himself — a curious oversight, since his discovery is virtually synonymous with biochemical energy and a major development in early biochemistry.

Lohmann also discovered cocarboxylase, now known as thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) or thiamine diphosphate (ThDP), a vitamin B1 derivative produced by thiamine pyrophosphatase. In 1935, in a phenomenon still known as the Lohmann reaction, he found that ATP and creatine phosphate (PCr) are held in equilibrium by creatine kinase. During his nation's Nazi era and the subsequent communist era that lasted until after his death, he joined neither the Nazi nor Communist parties. He retired in 1964, and died fourteen years later. He is the namesake of the Karl Lohmann Prize, awarded by the German Society for Biological Chemistry.

57.  Danish physician and scientist Jens C. Skou studied the means by which sodium and potassium ions are transported and distributed through the cell membranes. In 1956 he discovered that the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) degrading enzyme was most stimulated in response to sodium and potassium ions, similar to those found naturally in nerve cells. From this evidence and more, Skou theorized that ATPase works through the means of an ion "pump" in the cell membrane, and detailed the process of phosphorylation, in which a phosphate group is transferred from donor to acceptor. For his discovery of the Na+ K+ ATPase pump, Skou was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997, sharing the honor with [[Paul D. Boyer]] and [[John E. Walker]], who conducted ATP related research independently.

56.  English chemist John E. Walker studied the structural composition of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that transports energy in cells. He and his team at the UK's Medical Research Council spent more than 15 years analyzing this enzyme, adapting chemical and x-ray methodology to this work, and their results, published in 1994, provide a molecular framework for the more theoretical work of the American chemist [[Paul D. Boyer]]. Walker, Boyer, and Danish scientist [[Jens C. Skou]] shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He has also studied human nutritional processes and proteomics, the branch of genetics that studies the full set of proteins encoded by a genome.

55.  American chemist Paul D. Boyer helped unravel the process by which adenosine triphosphate (ATP) drives cellular activities. His work explained the mechanism that leads to the ongoing synthesis of ATP, and showed in 1971 that ATP synthase exists in three forms, as a circular assembly in the mitochondrial membrane, an axle rod, and a cylinder at the axle's other end, inside the mitochondria. He hypothesized that hydrogen ions turn the circular assembly like a turnstile as they proceed through the mitochondrial membrane, turning both the axle and the cylinder. For his work explaining the mechanism by which living cells produce energy, Boyer shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with [[Jens C. Skou]] and [[John E. Walker]], who conducted related research.

54.  Physicist Douglas D. Osheroff studied under [[Richard Feynman]] and [[Gerry Neugebauer]], worked for fifteen years at Bell Laboratories, and taught for decades at Stanford, but his principle contribution to science came while he was still a graduate student at Cornell, in 1972. [[David M. Lee]] and [[Robert C. Richardson]] had constructed a new apparatus for supercooling substances in Cornell's low-temperature physics laboratory when Osheroff, in analyzing the transition of frozen helium-3 to a magnetic state, found that each time samples of helium-3 were chilled to a temperature of 2.7 millikelvins, the internal pressure of the helium sample deviated. Detailed analysis showed that the samples were attaining the state of superfluidity — a complete lack of viscosity, allowing transfer of mass without transfer of energy, and other abnormal behaviors for a liquid. Osheroff, Lee, and Richardson shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1996. Osheroff continues to teach and study quantum fluids and solids and glasses at ultra-low temperatures, and has also investigated adiabatic nuclear demagnetization, the dielectric and thermal properties of glasses, and kinetic theory.

53.  American physicist Robert C. Richardson won the Nobel Prize in 1996, sharing the honor with [[David M. Lee]] and [[Douglas D. Osheroff]], for their 1972 collaborative discovery of superfluidity in helium-3. A rare form of the elemental gas, helium-3 becomes a superfluid only when chilled to almost unimaginably cold temperatures — 2 millikelvin, or two thousandths of a degree above absolute zero.

Superfluidity makes a liquid behave very strangely, operating under the rules of quantum mechanics instead of ordinary physics. Superfluids can, for example, flow upwards, spilling out of a container through the top instead of being held down by the force of gravity. This and other aspects of their findings were so bizarre and challenging to conventional physics that their paper, now recognized as a major breakthrough in low-temperature physics, was originally rejected for publication. Their discovery has led to two new areas of research in condensed matter physics, heavy fermions and high temperature superconductivity.

52.  American physicist David M. Lee discovered, with [[Douglas D. Osheroff]] and [[Robert C. Richardson]] in 1972, that helium-3 ((He-3, a light, rare, non-radioactive isotope of helium comprised of two protons and one neutron) becomes a superfluid when it is cooled to near absolute zero. Superfluids have a complete absence of viscosity, and behave very differently than ordinary liquids. If circulated in a closed loop, for example, asuperfluid could theoretically flow forever, with no friction. The work of Lee, Osheroff, and Richardson radically altered the scientific understanding of how matter behaves at sub-macroscopic scales, and these three scientists shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1996. Lee has also studied magnetic resonance, spin polarized hydrogen gas, superconductivity, ultra-low temperature cryogenics, and atomic hydrogen and nitrogen stabilized by matrix isolation in helium-impurity clusters.

51.  American chemist and physicist Richard E. Smalley was an expert in cluster chemistry and cold ion beam technology, conducted extensive research into nanotube single-crystal growth, and championed research into nanotechnology. He is best known for his 1985 discovery, with [[Robert F. Curl, Jr.]] and [[Sir Harold Kroto]], of carbon-60 (C60), a previously unknown allotrope of carbon. C60 consists of sixty atoms structured in the shape of [[R. Buckminster Fuller]]'s geodesic dome, and thus was named buckminsterfullerene. Smalley said that he was inspired to a life of science by the widely-publicized 4 October 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik spacecraft, and by his aunt, Sara Jane Rhoads, a chemistry professor at the University of Wyoming and one of the first American women to reach that position. Curl, Kroto, and Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

50.  British chemist Harold Kroto was co-discoverer of C60, a previously unknown form of carbon also called buckminsterfullerene (named for its atomic structure's resemblance to [[R. Buckminster Fuller]]'s geodesic domes). He won the Nobel Prize in 1996, shared with his colleagues in this discovery, [[Robert F. Curl, Jr.]] and [[Richard E. Smalley]]. He has also studied the electronic spectroscopy of free radicals, fullerene chemistry, multiple bond molecule design, the range molecular constituents of carbon vapor, and the structure of nanotubes.

49.  American scientist Robert F. Curl, Jr. has said that his interest in chemistry was sparked by receiving a chemistry set as a Christmas present when he was nine years old. He studied at Rice University and the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1985 he was a co-discoverer of fullerenes, a sixty-atom form of carbon (C60) that is molecularly distinct from the other carbons, diamond and graphite. C60's atoms are arranged in hexagons and pentagons reminiscent of [[R. Buckminster Fuller]]'s geodesic domes, and are named buckminsterfullerenes (or more informally, "buckyballs") in his honor. Curl shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the co-discoverers of fullerenes, his colleague at Rice University, [[Richard E. Smalley]], and a more distant collaborator at the University of Sussex, [[Sir Harold Kroto]]. Since conducting his Nobel Prizewinning work, his more recent research has focused on DNA genotyping and sequencing instrumentation, environmental monitoring, free radicals, gas phase chemical kinetics, and infrared laser spectroscopy.

48.  Jack Horkheimer was an entirely self-taught astronomer who became director of the Space Transit Planetarium at the Miami Science Museum, but he was far better known as the host of PBS's Jack Horkheimer, Star Gazer. The program, syndicated in both one-minute and five-minute weekly episodes, features Horkheimer strolling among the planets and sometimes sitting on Saturn's rings while offering explanatory tidbits of astronomy, presented over an appropriately spacey all-electronic rendition of [[Claude Debussy]]'s Arabesque #1. His walks and talks through the skies centered on heavenly objects and phenomena that could be observed even without a telescope, with advice on what to look for in the night sky. Each episode ended with Horkheimer encouraging the audience to "Keep looking up!"

His father owned a printing shop and served more than two decades as the mayor of Horkheimer's home town, Randolph, Wisconsin. The young Horkheimer was afflicted with bronchiectasis, a chronic and progressive disease of dilated, enlarged bronchi that results from lower respiratory tract infection, which made his childhood miserable. Raised devoutly Catholic, he felt that the illness was a curse from God, and attempted suicide when he was barely twelve years of age. After graduating from high school in 1956, he was briefly hospitalized with a nervous breakdown.

He worked as a piano player in a hotel bar, and toured with some success as a jazz pianist and organist under the stage name 'Horky' and, later, as Jack Foley. He studied drama at Purdue, hoping to become a playwright, and when his disease grew worse he settled in Miami, where the climate was easier on his lungs. He found a job to pay the bills, but loved volunteering at the planetarium in his spare time.

Calling on his theater training, he researched, wrote and performed popular explanations to accompany the astronomy projections, and his presentations, including "Child of the Universe" and “Mother Won’t Let Me Ride in a Flying Saucer", became very popular. After three years of volunteer work he was hired at the planetarium, and in 1974 he was promoted to Executive Director. He soon became a local celebrity and TV-friendly science spokesman, and in 1976 he began appearing as the Star Hustler (later re-named Star Gazer) for his local PBS affiliate, WPBT. The program was syndicated after 1985, and continued until his death in 2010. On many stations the program aired late in the evening, or as the last broadcast before signing off.

In 1982 he was the driving force behind an event billed as "The End of the World Party" in Miami. It was intended as a low-key open-air stargazing party loosely inspired by a schlock science book that predicted the end of the universe, and Horkheimer had organized numerous similar events without any problems. But this party was promoted by an area rock station as sort of an astronomical Woodstock, described as a "Doomsday" festival. Perhaps predictably in hindsight, a full-scale riot ensued when no musical bands took the stage. Arrests and injuries numbered in the hundreds, stabbings and beatings were reported, and though no-one was killed, Horkheimer said he was unable to sleep through the night for a week.

His health was always precarious, and as his disease continued to worsen Horkheimer had his own tombstone prepared, engraved, "'Keep looking up’ was my life’s admonition. I can do little else in my present position". He never married, and suffered from severe acrophobia — fear of heights.

47.  American physicist Frederick Reines discovered the neutrino in 1956, collaborating with Clyde Cowan (1919-1974) at the Savannah River atomic plant in South Carolina. The existence of the neutrino, an electrically neutral elementary particle having negligible mass moving at nearly the speed of light and interacting very weakly with matter, had been predicted by [[Wolfgang Pauli]] in 1930, but until Cowan and Reines' discovery scientists had generally believed that these particles were so infinitesimally small that their existence could not be conclusively proven. He shared the 1995 Nobel Prize with the discoverer of the tau lepton, [[Martin L. Perl]].

46.  American physicist Martin L. Perl discovered the tau lepton, a heavy lepton with a mass greater than the proton and the first known member of the third quark-lepton family, in 1974. The tau lepton is a subatomic particle similar in some regards to the electron, but several thousand times heavier and far shorter lived.

When Perl began his work, scientists knew of only four leptons: electrons, muons, and their corresponding neutrinos. The last known lepton had been discovered in 1936, and when Perl used the new Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetry Ring (SPEAR) at Stanford University to search for further leptons it was considered a largely theoretical exercise. The tau lepton is now known to be a fundamental building block of matter, and its discovery added to the evidence supporting the Big Bang theory. Perl was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1995, sharing the honor with [[Frederick Reines]], who discovered the neutrino.

45.  American chemist F. Sherwood Rowland studied under [[Willard F. Libby]], [[Edward Teller]], and [[Harold C. Urey]], and collaborated with [[Mario J. Molina]] on a study that showed the environmental dangers of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Rowland and Molina's report, published in 1974, established that CFCs (compounds used in aerosol propellants, refrigerants, and some plastic foams) tend to rise to the upper atmosphere, where they are broken down to their chemical components by exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light, and subsequently act to destroy the ozone that protects humanity from the harmful effects of UV radiation. Their work was initially ridiculed — and still is, by those who object to its implications — but was soon verified by the National Academy of Sciences. The use of CFCs was subsequently restricted in the United States and many other nations, and Rowland, Molina, and Dutch meteorologist [[Paul J. Crutzen]] were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995.

44.  American chemist Mario J. Molina studied the environmental damage caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of chemicals widely used in industrial and consumer applications including aerosol spray cans, pressurized containers, and refrigerators. In collaboration with [[F. Sherwood Rowland]], Molina showed that CFCs accumulate in the ozone layer and, when exposed to the ultraviolet radiation that abounds there, CFCs rapidly break down to their base chemicals — chlorine, fluorine, and carbon. Freed from their bond to fluorine and carbon, the chlorine atoms then wreak havoc among ozone molecules, effectively destroying up to 100,000 ozone molecules for each chlorine atom. The effect of this, Molina and Rowland postulated, is the breakdown of the ozone layer's ability to block the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. As a result of their research, CFCs have been largely eliminated by law, and Molina and Rowland shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995.

43.  Dutch scientist Paul J. Crutzen followed an unusual academic trajectory. His grade school education was interrupted by the Nazi occupation of his native Netherlands, and his high school test scores were too low to earn a university scholarship, so he instead attended technical college, where he majored in civil engineering. He worked in that field for several years before being hired in 1959 as a computer programmer at the University of Stockholm, despite having no training or experience with computers. He caught on quickly to the mathematical intricacies of early programming, and launched a second career constructing early modeling software for the university's meteorological institute. In performing this work, he was drawn to the science of meteorology, and began attended related classes at the University, earning his doctorate in 1968 and beginning his third career as a meteorologist.

He was the first scientist to recognize that nitrous oxide, produced by the increasing use of high-nitrogen fertilizers and fossil fuel powered engines, was a contributing factor to depletion of the ozone layer, a stratospheric range about twenty miles above the Earth's surface. Crutzen showed how the ozone layer is formed and destroyed, and his 1970 research showed that ultraviolet radiation in the ozone layer reacts with nitrous oxide, converting the ozone to molecular oxygen and thus leaving the planet and its occupants increasingly vulnerable to the effects of ultraviolet radiation. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995, shared with [[Mario J. Molina]] and [[F. Sherwood Rowland]], who studied chlorofluorocarbons.

He also modeled the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption of 1991 to propose that atomic warfare could cause a "nuclear winter" effect, a theory later popularized by [[Carl Sagan]]. In 2006 he proposed a controversial but bizarrely plausible geo-engineering response to global climate change, in which sulfur would be released into the upper atmosphere to, hopefully, block some of the sun's light and heat from reaching the planet.

42.  Physicist Clifford G. Shull developed the basic principles of elastic neutron scattering, and designed the first neutron diffractometer, an important tool used to analyze the structure and dynamics of solids and fluids. His work showed that when a sample of liquid or solid material is targeted by a neutron beam, the beam is scattered by the atoms that make up the material, and that the pattern of this diffraction can be analyzed to reveal the positions of the atoms. He conducted his landmark research while working with Ernest Wollan (1902-1984) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1950s, and shared the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physics with Canadian scientist [[Bertram N.Brockhouse]]. Shull's work was instrumental in the subsequent development of high-strength plastics and advanced magnetics now commonly used in credit cards and compact discs.

41.  Bertram N. Brockhouse worked as a radio repairman after graduating from high school, and served as an electronics technician in the Canadian Navy during World War II. With funding from Canada's Department of Veterans' Affairs he was able to attend college after his discharge from the Navy, earning his doctorate in physics at the University of Toronto in 1950. He found work at Canada's Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, where he used neutron spectroscopes to disperse radiation, visible or invisible, into its component wavelengths for analysis.

In 1951, he proposed the construction of a device to utilize a neutron beam as a spectrometer to probe crystal structures as well as metals and minerals. His triple-axis crystal spectrometer first became operative in 1956, and allowedBrockhouse to develop a technique known as inelastic neutron scattering, to study the scattering of neutrons bombarding atoms in a crystal lattice, measuring the energy lost or absorbed from assorted atomic collisions. His work had a major impact on the theory and scientific understanding of the physics that govern solids and liquids, and found practical applications in areas ranging from computer design to infrared detectors.

Brockhouse shared the 1994 Nobel Prize with American physicist [[Clifford G. Shull]], who conducted related work independently, using neutron probes. The time lag between the honor and the work which earned it — some four decades — is among the longest on record. His phone's ringer was off when the Nobel Committee called from Sweden, and Brockhouse said that he played the message on his answering machine several times in disbelief. He later joked that he thought his work was of mere minor importance, but changed his mind after he won the Nobel. He was and remains the only Canadian-born Nobel laureate in science who spent his entire career in Canada.

40.  American chemist George A. Olah was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1994. He was educated at Budapest University of Technology and Economics but left his homeland after the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. While working at Dow Chemical's laboratories, he devised a method for extending the intermediate phase of rapid hydrocarbon reactions, and found that the introduction of an extremely strong acid could preserve carbocations (ions with a positively-charged carbon atom) for as long as months. His work allowed the mass production of synthesized high-octane gasoline, and uncovered new ways for the petroleum industry to use hydrocarbons.

39.  American astronomer Joseph H. Taylor Jr. was the co-discoverer, with [[Russell A. Hulse]] in 1974, of the first known binary pulsar. Registered under the rather innocuous title PSR 1913+16, this discovery has had a major impact in scientific circles. It allowed the development, by Taylor and others, of a means to detect and measure the gravitational waves as these two degenerate neutron stars orbit each other and interact.

In 1978, in an unprecedented test, Taylor provided the first verifiable evidence supporting Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (also called the Theory of Gravitation), showing the magnetic aspect of gravity. This work, which has practical ramifications in cosmology, fundamental astrometry, gravitational physics, stellar evolution, and time-keeping metrology, earned the Nobel Prize for Taylor and Hulse in 1993. Taylor continues to head pulsar investigations at Princeton, where his group has discovered myriad pulsars.

38.  American plasma physicist Russell A. Hulse studied under [[Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.]] at the University of Massachusetts, and with Taylor he co-discovered dozens of pulsars. Among these was PSR B1913+16, in the constellation Aquila, discovered with Hulse was working at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Hulse noted that the pulse rate of PSR B1913+16 was not consistent, and after ruling out a computer programming error, he noted that its pulses were actually cyclical, repeating at a rate of a bit less than once every eight hours. Hulse theorized that this particular pulsar was binary, a rapidly spinning neutron star orbiting a nearby companion object. In collaboration with Taylor, Hulse proved that PSR B1913+16 was the first known binary pulsar (two pulsars orbiting each other), and determined its key properties.

Of greater significance, the interacting gravitational fields of these two neutron stars allowed Hulse, Taylor, and other scientists to craft a methodology for detecting gravitational waves, which were predicted by [[Albert Einstein]]'s General Theory of Relativity, effectively verifying Einstein's theory for a system outside our solar system. Their discovery has been ranked among the most important scientific accomplishments of the 20th Century, and has had major ramifications across numerous disciplines of physics. For their "discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation", Hulse and Taylor shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1993. Since 1977 he has studied plasma physics at Princeton.

37.  Linda McMahon is the former CEO of [[@list::company:world-wrestling-entertainment]], who resigned in 2009 to run for US Senate in Connecticut. She is a Republican who supports choice in abortion, the wars in the Middle East, and the 2009-10 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) federal bailout for high finance and banks. She is the wife of former champ and wrestling mogul [[Vince McMahon]].

In the WWE board room she was described as "the brains behind the brawn". Her significant accomplishments include negotiating the early television contracts that established WWE as the dominant force in wrestling, and successfully lobbying to reclassify WWE as "entertainment" instead of a sporting competition, which exempted WWE from millions of dollars in taxes levied on legitimate sports but not on theatrical productions. She has been implicated and WWE memos seem to implicate her as a knowing participant in the WWE's long-time "look the other way" policy on steroids, but she was CEO when WWE began taking serious action against its steroids problem in 2005.

In some memorable on-stage WWE appearances, McMahon — or rather, the fictional Linda McMahon character that she played — suffered a nervous breakdown in 2000, and was committed to a mental hospital. She later returned in a wheelchair, from which she dramatically rose to kick her husband in the groin during a 2001 match. After 2005, her WWE character was re-conceived as a heel (villain), and she was called into the ring in her position as CEO, and again kicked her husband in the groin. "I don't play CEO," she frequently said when she ran WWE, "I am the CEO."

36.  Canadian biochemist Michael Smith was born and raised in England, but came to Canada to conduct post-doctoral work under Nobel laureate [[H. Gobind Khorana]] and never left. He became a Canadian citizen in 1964, and developed a new technique in molecular biology, called oligonucleotide-based site-directed mutagenesis, in 1977. His work allowed scientists to remove and insert single nucleotides, alter the DNA sequence of any gene, insert and track designed mutations, and analyze the function of each amino acid.

Remarkably, the report of his group's finding was held for months by a prominent scientific journal before being rejected as "a technological development of no general interest". Resubmitted to a different journal, his paper was published toward the end of 1978, more than a year after the work had been completed, and has had major applications in medical research of Alzheimer disease, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, and sickle-cell disease, among other benefits. Smith won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993, and donated the cash honorarium, some half a million Canadian dollars, to scientific research. He passed away in 2000.

35.  French physicist Georges Charpak won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992 for his development of early particle detectors. His 1968 invention of the multiwire proportional chamber ended the need for physicists to develop and interpret films, and allowed the trajectories of particles high-energy collisions to be studied and tracked with far greater spatial precision than had previously been possible. [[CarloRubbia]] used Charpak's technology to discover W and Z particles in 1983.

Charpak was born in Poland, but his family immigrated to France when he was a child. He considered himself French, and was actively involved in the French Resistance during World War II, for which he was arrested and imprisoned at Dachau until the camp was liberated at the conclusion of World War II. He spent most of his career and conducted his Nobel Prizewinning work at the European Organization for Nuclear Research ([[@org::CODE]]). He has also written popular science texts debunking such anti-scientific topics as astrology, extra sensory perception, ouija boards, supernatural phenomena, and telekinesis.

34.  Canadian-American chemist Rudolph A. Marcus studied electron transfer in redox reactions, and made major contributions to the theory of electron-transfer reactions in chemical systems. His work showed that molecular changes in reactants and adjacent solvent molecules can influence how electrons move between molecules, and advanced the scientific understanding of in cell metabolism, corrosion, and photosynthesis. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1992.

33.  French physicist Pierre-Gilles de Gennes won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1991, for his studies of liquid crystals and polymers, topics previously thought to be too chaotic to be subjected to the rigorous analysis of physics. His work with complex fluids showed that methods already used to study the physics of simple systems could be adapted to study the behaviour of molecules and molecular chains in soft matter.

32.  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos comes from arguably his nation's most powerful family, which owned a controlling interest in the national newspaper ElTiempo and more than a dozen smaller papers until 2007. His cousin, Francisco Santos, was Vice President of Colombia under the preceding administration of [[AlvaroUribe]], and his great-uncle, Eduardo Santos (1888-1974), was President of Colombia from 1938 to 1942 and sole owner of El Tiempo during his lifetime.

As Uribe's Minister of Defense, Santos took a firm hand in the conflict with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and planned the 2008 Operation Jaque, a Colombian military operation that freed 15 hostages held by FARC. Though widely viewed as a heroic endeavor that cemented Santos' popularity, the rescue was criticized for using military operatives cloaked in garb that falsely identified them as International Red Cross workers, a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

When Uribe was forced from the Presidency by term limits in 2010, Santos won 69 percent of the vote in that year's elections to become Colombia's 59th President. In a region where several national leaders take pride in presenting themselves as hostile to American interests, Wall Street and Foggy Bottom have embraced the relatively conservative Santos as an ally. His term as President ends in August 2014, but he is eligible and is expected to run for re-election.

31.  Swiss chemist Richard R. Ernst had an abandoned chemistry set when he was a boy, and conducted experiments in his home laboratory through his high school years, with occasional accidents and explosions. He earned his doctorate and spent the bulk of his career at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, and is known for making improvements to the technology and sensitivity of nuclear spectroscopy, pertinent to both nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Ernst showed that under some circumstances, atomic nuclei can be forced out of their ordinary alignment when subjected to certain radio frequencies in short, intense pulses. His work, conducted while employed at Varian Associates in the 1960s, allowed far more detailed and precise analysis of molecular structures, and earned Ernst the 1991 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

30.  Elon Musk is a computer programmer, designer of rockets and electric cars, and entrepreneur who founded or co-founded PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. In his late teens he came to Canada to avoid the draft in his native South Africa, and in his 20s he earned degrees in physics and economics. In 1995 he quit a doctorate program at Stanford to market Zip2, a software system that became a widely-used publishing platform for newspapers' on-line editions. Four years later he sold his interest in Zip2 for more than $300M, and used the proceeds to found X.com, a system for processing payments via email. In 2000 X.com acquired its cross-town rival in Palo Alto, [[Peter Thiel]] and [[Max Levchin]]'s Confinity, and in 2001 X.com was renamed PayPal. In 2002 he sold his majority interest in PayPal to eBay for $1.5B.

In 2002, after selling his majority interest in PayPal, he established Space Exploration Technologies (also called SpaceX), a company that offers transport services into outer space, and has successfully launched rockets of Musk's design and placed a satellite into Earth orbit. In 2004 he provided the funding to establish Tesla Motors, manufacturer of all-electric vehicles which have sold briskly among those who can afford the rather steep price tag. For fun he owns and flies a unarmed test version of an Aero L-39 Albatros military jet fighter, and he has said that he intends to retire on Mars. [[Jon Favreau]], director of Iron Man, has said that Musk was his inspiration for the movie's characterization of eccentric inventor and billionaire Tony Stark.

29.  Sam Wyly made billions of dollars with a series of companies in the fledgling computer industry in the 1960s, plus a long stint owning the Bonanza/Ponderosa steakhouse chain and Michael's hobby shops. Frequently partnered in business with his brother, [[Charles Wyly]]. Charged with insider trading and securities fraud in 2010.

28.  Mitch Miller was a talented professional oboe player who made his mark as producer of hits for Mercury and later Columbia Records, and as performer and producer of wildly popular Sing Along with Mitch albums and a long-running television program of the same name. The title was meant literally — his niche was performing well-known standards, and listeners were encouraged to sing along. His album liners included complete lyrics, and on his telecasts the lyrics were superimposed onto the screen and viewers were instructed to "follow the bouncing ball" that hovered over the lyrics one word at a time. He topped the charts in 1955 with his sing-along recording of "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

As a producer, he convinced [[Rosemary Clooney]] to record the oddball ditty "Come On-a My House", which made her a star; he matched child singer [[Jimmy Boyd]] with the holiday hit "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"; he convinced moviemakers to have [[Frankie Laine]] sing the theme for [[Gary Cooper]]'s High Noon. He obtained and arranged hit singles for [[23118|Tony Bennett]], [[Doris Day]], [[Johnny Mathis]], [[Johnnie Ray]], and [[Jerry Vale]], and discovered [[Aretha Franklin]]. He nurtured the early career of [[Leslie Uggams]] by insisting that she be a featured player alongside white singers on his Sing Along TV show, in a time when such musical integration was considered controversial. With only occasional exceptions he avoided working in rock 'n' roll, which he described as "musical illiteracy".

27.  As a boy, Canadian physicist Richard E. Taylor was seriously injured by an explosion in the laboratory he had set up in the basement of his family's home, an event which, he has said, dulled his interest in chemistry and led him to pursue physics instead. He never earned a high school diploma, as he struggled with mathematics and illness kept him from attending classes. He studied physics at the University of Alberta, but that school offered no doctorate program so he was forced to migrate to America to earn his PhD. He was rejected on account of poor grades by the University of California at Berkeley, and instead attended Stanford, where he later taught and spent most of his scientific career.

In collaboration with [[Jerome I. Friedman]] and [[Henry W. Kendall]], Taylor conducted a series of experiments from 1967 to 1973, yielding results that were initially baffling, but eventually came to be understood as conclusive evidence that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles of matter, but are themselves comprised of quarks, even smaller subatomic particles. The existence of quarks had been predicted but never previously established, and many scientists at the time held that quarks were perhaps mathematical fictions drawn from of symmetry patterns, or were real but so tightly entrenched and large (on the subatomic scale) that they could not be pried free for examination. Taylor, Friedman, and Kendall shared the 1990 Nobel Prize for Physics, for their work revealing the inner structure of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus.

26.  Physicist Henry W. Kendall suffered from an unidentified reading disability in childhood, but later studied under [[Martin Deutsch]] at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With [[Jerome I. Friedman]] and [[Richard E. Taylor]] Kendall analyzed angles and energy trajectories of electrons and protons from hydrogen nuclei as they were scattered by collisions. Their findings showed that electrons were scattered more widely than the era's scientific understanding could readily explain, which set the stage for follow-up experiments which established the existence of quarks and led to a reworking of the Standard Model theory of matter. With his collaborators Friedman and Taylor, Kendall won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Kendall was a founding member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and chaired that anti-war group for more than twenty-five years. He composed the highly-publicized but politically-ignored "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity", published in 1992 and co-signed by some 1,700 scientists world-wide, which called for policy changes in government and business to avert environmental destruction that would cause widespread human misery and leave the Earth irretrievably damaged. "If we don’t halt population growth with compassion and justice," he wrote, "it will be done for us by nature; brutally and without pity — and will leave a ravaged world." In 1997 he was among the scientists who presented President [[Bill Clinton]] with a detailed explanation of the coming crisis of global climate change. He died in 1999.

25.  Experimental particle physicist Jerome I. Friedman has said he was drawn to science by reading [[Albert Einstein]]'s Relativity: The Special and General Theory while he was in high school. He studied under [[Enrico Fermi]] at the University of Chicago, and investigated particle structure and interactions of high energy electrons, neutrinos, and hadrons. Friedman is best known for a series of experiments conducted at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1967-73, which established the theoretical existence of quarks, sub-microscopic energy packets that are building blocks for protons and neutrons, and were believed to be the fundamental particles of matter. With his colleagues in these experiments, [[Henry W. Kendall]] and [[Richard E. Taylor]], Friedman won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1990.

24.  American chemist Elias James Corey won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1990, for advancing and formalizing the concept of "retrosynthetic analysis", a systematic technique of chemical synthesis which efficiently transforms a target molecule into simpler precursor structures. In work that began in earnest in 1957 and continued through the early 1970s, he developed more than one hundred synthetic reactions and transformations through his own work, and was among the first chemists to use computer analysis to design chemical syntheses. The practical applications of his work include the development of numerous medicinal drugs, includingprostaglandins and ginkgolide B.

23.  Before coming to America in his late 20s, Hans G. Dehmelt fought for his native Germany during World War II, and was taken prisoner of war at the Battle of the Bulge in early 1945. After the war he came to America, where he taught at the University of Washington and worked for years on the seemingly impossible task of containing charged particles for extended study. In 1973, after nearly two decades of effort and experiment, he demonstrated a device that imposes an electrical field over a magnetic field to trap electrically charged atoms (ions) and electrons for indefinite storage. Dehmelt said that his invention was inspired by the principles of a vacuum gauge designed by Dutch physicist Frans Michel Penning (1894-1953), which is why Dehmelt called his invention a Penning trap. Studies conducted with Dehmelt's Penning trap led scientists to adjust their estimates of an electron's size by a factor of 10,000. He said that he "felt like dancing" when he was honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1989, and that he spent the accompanying cash stipend "in the appropriate fashion". His Nobel honor was shared with [[Wolfgang Paul]] and [[Norman F. Ramsey]].

22.  US physicist Norman F. Ramsey studied under [[Isidor Isaac Rabi]], and developed the the separated-oscillatory-field method in 1950, which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. For this work he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1989, shared with [[Wolfgang Paul]] and [[Hans G. Dehmelt]]. He has also researched high-energy particle scattering, low-energy magnetic resonance, magnetic moments, radar, nuclear forces, neutron-proton and proton-helium scattering, the rotational magnetic moments of molecules, the structural shape of nuclear particles, and the thermodynamics of energized populations of atoms and molecules.

21.  German physicist Wolfgang Paul invented the Paul trap, a device that made possible the detailed study of subatomic particles by trapping individual ions for extended observation. A Paul trap is similar to [[Hans G. Dehmelt]]'s Penning trap, but is based on somewhat different principles. It features two electrical plates or end caps, with a circular electrode between, which traps particles in its electrical field, but isolates these trapped ions and electrons from temperature, pressure, and other outside influences. The device's trapping mechanism made possible the development of atomic clocks, and has proven valuable in the study of atomic structures. With Dehmelt and [[Norman F. Ramsey]], Paul won the Nobel Prize in 1989.

Not to be confused with [[Wolfgang Pauli]], an earlier Nobel laureate in Physics.

20.  In a 1982 experiment with the protozoa Tetrahymena thermophilia, biochemist Thomas R. Cech discovered that ribonucleic acid (RNA) could act as its own catalyst, stimulating its own chemical reactions. Until then, scientists had believed that RNA was only a carrier of genetic information, so Cech and his team spent the next year double-checking and scrutinizing their results for a hidden protein "contaminant". Cech's original finding was startling but eventually proven correct, showing that RNA can trigger the biological reactions previously thought to be catalyzed solely by proteins. Cech shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with [[Sidney Altman]], whose separate research led to the same discovery almost concurrently.

19.  Mississippi oilman Robert Dudley worked for Amoco for two decades, and came to British Petroleum when BP bought Amoco in 1998. He served five years as CEO of BP's joint venture with Russian investors, TNK-BP, resigning in 2008 after being accused by key Russian financiers of having "violated Russian laws ... and the shareholders agreement". He was born in Queens, and spent a major portion of his childhood in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

18.  Molecular biologist Sidney Altman discovered in 1983 that ribonucleic acid (RNA) can initiate some biological reactions, acting as a abiocatalyst and seemingly playing the role of a protein enzyme. This overturned the established scientific understanding that RNA acts only as a carrier of genetic information, and challenged basic biological tenets on the origins of life. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1989, sharing the award with [[Thomas R. Cech]], who reached very similar conclusions in his own independent work.

17.  American physicist Jack Steinberger was born in Germany, and fled that nation's Nazi regime with his family. He studied under [[Enrico Fermi]] and [[Edward Teller]] at the University of Chicago, and briefly worked at the University of California at Berkeley, leaving in 1950 when he refused to sign the required oath of anti-communism. Relocating to Columbia, he worked in that university's Nevis Laboratory, where he helped [[Melvin Schwartz]] develop the neutrino beam method, using high-energy neutrinos to study the weak interaction of the four fundamental forces of nature and specifically the neutrino (a subatomic particle that has no electric charge and virtually no mass). In the early 1960s his work confirmed the existence of a previously unknown second type of neutrinos, the muon neutrino. Since 1968 he has worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and in 1988 he won the Nobel Prize for Physics.

16.  American physicist Melvin Schwartz studied under [[Isidor Isaac Rabi]] at Columbia University, and suggested in the 1950s that physicists could more easily study neutrinos (elementary particles with zero electric charge and virtually no mass) if these difficult-to-isolate submicroscopic particles were concentrated. His experiments led to the design and construction of devices capable of filtering out other atomic debris, leaving only neutrinos. Using such a device, the proton accelerator atBrookhaven National Laboratory, Schwartz and his colleagues [[Leon M. Lederman]] and [[Jack Steinberger]] discovered the muon neutrino in a series of "two neutrino experiments" from 1961-62. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, and retired to Idaho in 1997, where he died in 2006.

15.  American physicist Leon M. Lederman developed the neutrino beam method and demonstrated the doublet structure of leptons. In 1956 he discovered the long-lived neutral K-meson which had been predicted in theory, and the following year he proved a parity violation in pion and muon decay. In 1961-62, working with [[Melvin Schwartz]] and [[Jack Steinberger ]], he conducted what is now one of the most famous experiments in scientific history, the "two neutrino experiment", which identified the second such particle, the muon neutrino. In 1977 he discovered the upsilon particle, a previously unidentified particle nine times heavier than the proton, providing the first substantial evidence of the fifth or "bottom" quark.

Still, when the phone rang in his home at 5:45 AM on 19 October 1988, he was joking when he mumbled to his wife, "It's probably the Nobel Prize committee." It was, of course, and with Schwartz and Steinberger he won that year's Nobel Prize for Physics. In 1963 he proposed a facility that was eventually built as the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and from 1979-89 he served as Fermi's Director. He has long been critical of science literacy among Americans, and advocates a program of "Physics First" in education — teaching physics before biology and chemistry instead of after.

14.  German biochemist Hartmut Michel developed a process that uses X-ray technology to determine the structure of large molecules. With his colleagues [[Robert Huber]] and [[Johann Deisenhofer]], he explored the photosynthetic action center, a four-protein complex that is central to the process of photosynthesis, and won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988.

13.  German chemist Robert Huber advanced the technique called x-ray crystallography, and used it to determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of a photosynthetic reaction center, where photosynthesis takes place. With his colleagues [[Johann Deisenhofer]] and [[Hartmut Michel]], he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988.

12.  German-American chemist Johann Deisenhofer used and advanced x-ray crystallography to explore the chemical reactions of photosynthesis, the vital chemical process that enables plants and some bacteria to convert energy from the sun into food and oxygen. With [[Robert Huber]] and [[Hartmut Michel]] in the early 1980s, he was the first scientist to reveal the atomic structure of the photosynthetic reaction center, a complex of three types of proteins that acts as a central control for photosynthesis. His discovery has helped scientists understand membrane-bound proteins, which are necessary to the healthy functions of enzymes, hormones, and other proteins. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988, and became an American citizen in 2001. He has also studied crystallographic software, membrane proteins, and water-soluble proteins.

11.  Swiss physicist K. Alex Müller, working at IBM with his former student [[J. Georg Bednorz]], showed in 1986 that a mixture of barium (Ba), lanthanum (La), copper (Cu), and oxygen (O) attained superconductivity (disappearance of electrical resistance at extremely low temperatures) at 35 K. While this is almost unimaginably cold, it was substantially higher than temperatures at which superconductivity had been previously observed in any other materials. The article announcing their discovery was published in September 1986, and thirteen months later Müller and Bednorz were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

10.  German physicist J. Georg Bednorz graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1982, and was hired by IBM's physics lab in Zurich. He was assigned to help [[K. Alex Müller ]], who had been his doctoral advisor, in his quest for superconductivity (disappearance of electrical resistance at extremely low temperatures) at higher critical temperatures, and in 1986 they showed that a compound of lanthanum, barium, and copper oxide that had a critical temperature of 35 K (-238°C), substantially warmer than the norm for superconductivity in other materials. In 1987, just five years after earning his PhD, Bednorz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, shared with Müller. Since then Bednorz has studied phase transitions, quantum ferroelectricity, metallic conductivity, and development of high Tc superconductors.

9.  DuPont chemist Charles J. Pedersen discovery of a novel class of chemical compounds called macrocyclic polyethers in 1963, which he called "crown" ethers because of their molecular shape. For competitive reasons his employer delayed publication of his findings until 1967, and he retired two years after the paper was published. The principles and concepts he laid out were adapted by [[Donald J. Cram]], [[Jean-MarieLehn]], and other scientists to synthesize three-dimensional molecule design, leading to a shared Nobel Prize for Cram, Lehn, and Pederson in 1987. He was of mixed Norwegian and Japanese ancestry, and saw his parents for the last time when he left Yokohama at the age of 17, to attend college in America. He died in 1989.

8.  French chemist Jean-Marie Lehn extended [[Charles J. Pedersen]] discovery of crown ethers (macrocyclic compounds containing repeat units of -CH2CH2O-, or any similar compound containing nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus or silicon atoms instead of or in addition to oxygen atoms) from two-dimensional rings into a three dimensional understanding of molecular structure. Lehn synthesized a three-dimensional molecule that bound to neurotransmitters in the brain, a precursor to artificially-engineered enzymes with more desirable functions than natural enzymes. His work showed that crown ethers could be combined into a complex structures, and established that cryptands (polycyclic compounds consisting of three chains attached at matching nitrogen atoms) can bind metal cations with more selectivity than can crown ethers. With Pedersen and [[Donald J. Cram]], Lehn won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1987.

7.  American chemist Donald J. Cram won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1987, sharing the highest honor in science with [[Jean-Marie Lehn]] and [[Charles J. Pedersen ]], for work that effectively created a new scientific field called host-guest chemistry. He spent the early years of his career researching artificial enzymes, and had an immediate epiphany after reading Pedersen's 1967 paper reporting the discovery of the first crown ethers (macrocyclic compounds containing repeat units of -CH2CH2O-, or any similar compound containing nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus or silicon atoms instead of or in addition to oxygen atoms), so called because they physically resemble crowns.

He spent the next two days constructing physical models of molecules, to determine which "host" structure would be most accommodating to "guest" molecules for bonding. Adapting Pedersen's findings to the theoretical synthesis of three-dimensional molecules that mimic the functioning of natural molecules, he developed this into a new methodology, host-guest chemistry, for synthesizing molecules that mimic certain chemical reactions of life. He taught at UCLA for almost five decades, where he traditionally celebrated the last day of school by performing folk songs on his guitar in class. He was also a skilled surfer.

In a famous mix-up, when Cram won his Nobel Prize a representative of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences mistakenly telephoned and congratulated a California carpet cleaner also named Donald Cram, who became a minor celebrity for several days.

6.  Worked his way up through the military ranks, served as a rifle and weapons platoon commander and later ran a recruiting station in Portland. Commanded assault battalions in the Gulf War (1990-91), and more recently led ground forces in the wars against both Afghanistan and Iraq. Led US troops in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq, a confrontation regarded as particularly brutal even by standards of war, in which Mattis personally altered the rules of engagement to reverse the priority from "capture or kill" to "kill or capture."

He is widely respected and admired in the military, and seen as brusque but brilliant. He is known for frequent visits to the front lines during battle, and he has described his job as simply "killing the enemy." Mattis drew political fire and a gentle rebuke from higher-ups for a 2005 speech in which he offered his perspective bluntly but colorfully: "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." He ships a large library of books to wherever he is assigned, frequently quotes [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Sun Tzu]], and [[Carl von Clausewitz|von Clausewitz]], and has offered admiring analysis of tactics used by Native American warriors in the 19th century.

Nominated 8 July 2010 to become Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).

5.  Swiss physicist Heinrich Rohrer began working on the scanning tunneling microscope in 1978, with [[Gerd Binnig]], a colleague at IBM's experimental facility in Switzerland. Their invention, introduced in 1981, uses the quantum tunnel effect to allow analysis of the molecular structure at the atomic level. Rohrer later recounted that when he told co-workers at IBM what he and Binnig were working on, "They all said, 'You are completely crazy — but if it works, you'll get the Nobel Prize'." Five years later they shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with [[Ernst Ruska]], inventor of the electron microscope.

In 1986 Rohrer and Binnig adapted their work to create the atomic force microscope, which uses a stylus to mechanically probe the surface of materials, allowing unprecedented clarity in the study of the structure of matter. Rohrer, who retired from IBM in 1997, has also studied Kondo systems, magnetic phase diagrams, multicritical phenomena, nanomechanics, nuclear magnetic resonance, phase transitions, the random-field problem, and superconductivity.

4.  German physicist Gerd Binnig studied at Goethe University and the University of Frankfurt, and has spent most of his career at IBM. In 1981, with his colleague [[Heinrich Rohrer]], he designed the first scanning tunneling microscope, which uses quantum mechanical effects to magnify images of conducting or semiconducting materials to the extent that individual atoms are easily recognizable. In 1986 they invented the atomic force microscope, which uses an almost unfathomably sensitive stylus to mechanically probe surface contours at an even finer level of clarity. "I couldn't stop looking at the images", Binnig said of the scanning tunneling microscope's preliminary tests. "It was entering a new world." In 1986 he and Rohrer won the Nobel Prize, sharing the highest honor in science honor with [[Ernst Ruska]], who invented the electron microscope.

3.  Canadian chemist John C. Polanyi studied the molecular mechanisms of chemical reactions, pioneered the use of infrared chemiluminescence, and won the Nobel Prize in 1986. He proposed a chemical laser, operating on the principles and properties of hydrogen-chlorine reactions and similar chemical reactions, leading to George Pimentel's development of the high-power chemical laser. Polanyi's Nobel Prize-winning paper was rejected at the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, before being published in Journal of Chemical Physics in September 1960. His father, Michael Polanyi, was a well-known professor of chemistry and philosophy, and his uncle was the economist [[Karl Polanyi]].

2.  Appointed to the US Senate by Governor [[Joe Manchin]] (D-West Virginia) on 16 July 2010, following the death of Senator [[Robert Byrd]]. He will take office on 20 July.

A consummate insider, his father was chairman of the board at West Virginia University, his uncle is federal judge Joe Bob Goodwin, his aunt is the state's Secretary of Education and the Arts, his wife is director of the in-state office of West Virginia's other Senator, [[Jay Rockefeller]], and Goodwin himself was general counsel for Gov Manchin until 2009. His Senate seat will be subject to election in November 2010, at which time Goodwin is expected to run for election to the last two years of Byrd's term.

1.  American chemist Dudley R. Herschbach was first drawn to science by reading National Geographic as a child, and studied under E. Bright Wilson at Harvard, where he spent most of his academic career. Herschbach has been at the forefront of a new field of science, molecular stereodynamics, the measurement and theoretical analysis of vector properties of reaction dynamics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1986, sharing the honor with [[Yuan T. Lee]], for their development of the "crossed molecular beam technique" in which molecular beams are brought together at extreme speeds for facilitate improved studies of chemical reactions. He has also experimented with catalytic supersonic expansion reactions, dimensional scaling, molecule orientation in collision stereodynamics, and slowing and trapping molecules, and played himself in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons.