John Goodenough, The Scientist Who Helped Revolutionize Lithium-Ion Batteries, Dies at 100

John Goodenough, a pioneering researcher who helped transform lithium-ion batteries, died at the age of 100 on Sunday. His inventions that helped develop modern computers and commercialize lithium-ion batteries touched every person’s life on the planet. Yet few knew him and his work didn’t bring him riches, though it did earn him a Nobel Prize very late in life. None of that bothered Goodenough, as he kept developing better batteries almost until the end of his life. His decades of work and innovation are now a cornerstone in the race to decarbonize the world’s vehicles and energy system. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Goodenough was born in Germany in 1922 to American parents, and his life can be summed up as finding himself in unfamiliar places but managing to excel all the same. He grew up in New Haven, Connecticut near Yale University, where his father taught history of religion. In his 2008 autobiography Witness to Grace, he recounts a childhood made up of distant parents and “deep hurt.” After he left for private boarding school at the age of 12, he studied Latin and Greek, learned to cope with reading disabilities and won a scholarship to Yale to study mathematics. Then came World War II, and, at the suggestion of his math tutor, he signed up to be a meteorologist rather than go to the front lines. Goodenough served in the US Air Force for nearly three years, first in Newfoundland and then in the North Atlantic archipelago of...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized bloomberg wire climate change healthscienceclimate remembrance Source Type: news