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Response delivered by Sir
Winner of the “Albert Einstein” World Award of Science 2007
at the World Cultural Council´s 24th Award Ceremony
Sir Fraser Stoddart
November 24th, 2007
at 18:00 hrs. in the University Theatre,
Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León
The roster of scientists who have won the “Albert Einstein” World Award of Science is a dauntingly impressive one. If I limit the roll call to only those scientists who have expressed their creativity through the medium of Chemistry, then I come across the names of Zewail and Cicerone and of Rowland and Lemieux. In the past few decades, they shaped Chemistry’s history and now they populate its pantheon. What an honor it is to join their company – as well as the ranks of the 19 other recipients! I extend my thanks most warmly to the Members of the Interdisciplinary Committee of World Culture Conncil for recognizing the significance of the research I have carried out these past four decades in four different countries – Scotland, Canada, England and the United States – with the involvement of a continuous flow of brilliant young researchers that now total about 300 from more than 25 countries.
My approach to Chemistry as the pivotal science has been far from a traditional one. Some would say it has been iconoclastic. It has highlighted my passion, working both independently and collaborative as circumstances have dictated, for making, measuring and modeling, all performed at one and the same time. I am of the opinion that it is essential to make, measure and model all at once in Chemistry, in order to contribute significantly to its intellectual challenge and societal value at this time in history. Making comes first and foremost. It is the acts of designing and synthesizing a product or a material with a particular form and/or function that distinguishes Chemistry from its cognate sciences. It was Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907) who, in 1860, stated, “La Chimie crée son objet.” – “Chemistry creates its object.” He continued, – “This creative capability, resembling that of art itself, distinguishes it essentially from the natural and historical sciences.” As one of Berthelot’s most fervent disciples these past 35 years, I have been a sculptor of matter at the ultimate of size levels that equates with being a chemist – namely the molecular level. I have faced formidable challenges, yet derived no end of pleasure from designing and synthesizing molecular compounds of a somewhat bizarre kind. These exotic compounds have contained, in addition to the classical chemical bonds, a mechanical bond.
When members of my research group first made molecules called catenanes – a term derived from the Latin word ‘catena’ for ‘chain’ – which are composed of two or more interlocked rings, and rotaxanes – a term derived from the Latin words ‘rota’ for ‘wheel’ and ‘axis’ for ‘axle’ – where a dumbbell-shaped component is encircled by one or more large rings, the compounds were looked upon as cute. “But, are they good for anything?,” people asked. Well, since moving from England to California in 1997, I have introduced bistability into both catenanes and rotaxanes and these smallest of machines are now making their way, by dint of collaboration with other scientists, into information processing systems and artificial molecular motors. Essentially, these minute switches and tiny engines have been designed and built with the intent of elevating molecular nanotechnology from being mainly, if not solely about form, to being largely about function. In the context of nanosystems, form is relatively easy to achieve: it is function that is fiendishly more difficult to address. Much latter-day nanotechnology today looks good in cosmetics and paints and stained-glass windows. Contemporary and creative Chemistry holds the key to the nanotechnology of the future, that not only looks good, but also works as well to produce widgets. It has taken me the best part of 25 years to get within sight of a molecular computer. Aside from the all-important making part of my Chemistry, it has also involved a lot of measuring and modeling, a lot of it done collaboratively with other highly talented scientists. During my scientific career, team work has become an increasingly important component of doing cutting-edge research. Another has been a readiness to move between centers of creativity in science. The trail of brilliant young men and women who have followed me through thick and thin from the Athens of the North to the City of Angels with brief and not so brief interludes on the edge of the Canadian Shield, in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, on the Plains of Cheshire beside the Wirral, and in the Midlands in the heartland of Albion have now had their achievements recognized and honored here in the Sultana del Norte at the highest levels on the international stage of science. I know that everyone of my young companions would wish to join with me in thanking the World Cultural Council most warmly for giving its seal of approval to the quality and significance of the science done by the Stoddart group.
I have something to add that is rather personal and deeply felt. I lost my wife, Norma, in early 2004 from the ravages of breast cancer. Her struggle with that insidious disease was to occupy 12 years of her life from 1992 to 2004, that is, a fifth of her own life and one-third of our married lives. Herself a Ph D chemist, Norma was the matriarch of the Stoddart group for a quarter of a century, as well as the proud mother of two daughters, Fiona and Alison, who also subsequently graduated with Ph D degrees in Chemistry, Fiona from Imperial College London, and Alison from the University of Durham in the UK. It is with more than a tinge of sadness that we, as a closely knit family, reflect upon the massive contribution Norma made to my and their accomplishments, and yet was not spared to share in them. It is just one of those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that we have had to bear and accept in the knowledge that she would surely have been an immensely proud spouse and contented mother today if she had lived to see it. The “Albert Einstein” Award of Science stands as a monument to her life and work.
Los Angeles
14 November 2007
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