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5 unusual facts about John Meurig Thomas


John Meurig Thomas

Later in life, Sir John would become the Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in London, a position held by Michael Faraday, who has remained one of his scientific heroes.

His interest in science was aroused when as a teenager he heard his physics teacher at Gwendraeth Grammar School talk about the life and work of Michael Faraday.

In recognition of his contributions to geochemistry, a new mineral, meurigite, was named after him in 1995 by the International Mineralogical Association.

He is the recipient of twenty honorary degrees from Australian, British, Canadian, Chinese, Dutch, Egyptian, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and U.S. universities, and has been elected to honorary membership in over fifteen foreign academies, including the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Accademia dei Lincei (Rome), and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

With the synthetic flair of Humphry Davy and the brilliance of his hero Faraday, we are led by the author to a feast of contemporary masterworks of chemical reactivity, prodded, by design, into the service of humanity.



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