A revised version, Chemical Galaxy II, introduces a new scheme, inspired by Michael Laing, for coloring the lanthanides and actinides, to bring out parallels with the transition metals.
In 1980, he received his Ph.D. in inorganic/physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for Nobel laureate and fellow Perkin medal winner Glenn Seaborg on the synthesis and characterization of volatile actinide compounds.