Richard E. Smalley Biography, Age, Weight, Height, Friend, Like, Affairs, Favourite, Birthdate & Other

Richard Errette Smalley was a renowned American chemist who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, Buckminsterfullerene. Considered to be an authority in cluster chemistry and cold ion beam technology, he was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, USA. Born in early 1940s in Ohio, but brought up in Kansas City, he had his first lessons in science sitting on his mother’s lap.

However, it was his maternal aunt, Dr. Sara Jane Rhoads, who mostly influenced him to take up chemistry. Subsequently, he earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Michigan and his PhD from the University of Princeton. In between, he worked for few years as a chemist at the Shell Company. Later he did his post doctorate at Chicago University. After completion of the term, he joined Rice University at Houston.

There he worked with Professor Curl and Professor Kroto, and the trio made the Nobel Prize winning discovery of buckminsterfullerene. Later, he conducted extensive research into nanotube single-crystal growth, and was a leading advocate of nanotechnology. It was partly because of him that the Federal Government formed the National Nanotechnology Initiative in early 2000s.