1. What made you want to be a chemist?

A combination of natural curiosity, parents who are scientists (with enough patience to answer endless questions), good teachers throughout my school years – and finally luck, in the form of the admissions tutor at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Durham. The Natural Science course for which I’d applied was over-subscribed, and Mike Crampton wrote to ask if I’d like to change my application to chemistry. I did, and 12 years later, here I am on Nature Chemistry.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

Working for Heston Blumenthal on his ‘molecular gastronomy’ would be pretty amazing, and certainly looks great fun on TV. But that’s practically chemistry!

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

Engage with it. Chemistry can, and has, improved the world to a staggering degree, but people just don’t seem to be aware of it. So if the general population can appreciate what chemistry has done for it, that engagement could remove some of the problems that chemistry is perceived to cause. For example, people might be so keen on polluting if they understood the potential damage more.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Bede and Linus Pauling. Defining what chemistry is, is always tricky, but for me it comes down to chemical bonds, and Pauling pretty much invented the way we see chemical bonds today. In addition to his chemistry Nobel Prize, he also won the peace Prize for campaigning against war and nuclear weapons, and he remains the only person to win two un-shared Nobel prizes. Bede was a monk in the kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th century AD (a system of reckoning time that he in fact invented). While he’s remembered today as ‘the father of English history’, his knowledge and influence is far greater than that. It’s incredible to think that, in a place often seen nowadays as so far from civilisation at the time, he ‘had at his command all the learning of his time’.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

Well, outside the lab, I made some Chelsea buns before I started on Nature Chemistry. I followed the ‘lab script’ carefully, weighed out my ‘reagents’ as accurately as I could and ended up with better looking ‘products’ than I ever made as an undergraduate! The pictures are on Facebook if anyone cares to look. Seriously, the last experiments I did in my PhD were conductivity measurements – but not before the seriously fiddly soldering of copper wires onto my precious samples (metal oxychalcogenide pellets), and hoping for an ohmic contact.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

As lots of other people cheat on this one, so shall I! I would love to take the 20 books of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin cycle or all the Jeeves and Blandings books of PG Wodehouse. If you’re going to be strict, I’ll plump for a Ray Mears survival guide! The man’s a legend anyway…

As for a CD, it’s a close call between Johnny Cash at San Quentin and the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album. I think the Stone Roses win on points!

Neil Withers is an Associate Editor for Nature Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

It’s certainly not a career you just fall into to but there was certainly no point at school at which I thought “I want to be a chemist”. I enjoyed chemistry at school so I continued doing it at university. As the physical side of it got more complex I got more and more immersed in it and couldn’t get out!

The move to publishing came when I realized that I couldn’t see myself spending any more time in the lab. I enjoyed reading other people’s research more than I did doing my own. I also realized that I’d like to spend more time reading more diverse science than what I could when doing fairly specialist projects.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I think I’d always have ended up in publishing but if I was to choose what I could write about it would be sports. I love football (soccer) and cricket and being able to watch it and get paid for it would be great!

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

There are two things that I think are very important. The first one is for chemists to not only address the major problems that are facing civilization currently, such as energy and sustainability, but to continue to work on fundamental problems still not fully understood. The second thing is to teach and discuss science with enthusiasm. Interest from non-specialists and students is fostered through passionate teachers. So many chemists tell stories about great teachers inspiring them to work in science and this is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

I have a real answer and a “professional” answer. My real answer is Brian Clough. For those of you who were not big football (soccer) fans in the 70’s and 80’s he was a manager (coach) for several English teams. During his career he won everything (English and European competitions) basically through great man management. He trusted his team and they trusted him. He would ask them to do something and even though they might not have understood why (any grad students know that feeling?) they would do it anyway (any grad students know that one?).

My professional answer is Ed Lorenz. Sadly, he died very recently but his legacy will live forever. His discovery of deterministic chaos in weather systems sounds like it could be interesting to only a select group of meteorologists, but the intrinsic mathematics behind those systems are important to so many researchers, from biologists to economists, that it started a new way of looking at deterministic systems. He had one of those “eureka” moments and it would be great to hear him talk about it!

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

I really can’t remember the last actual lab experiment I did. I left the lab to carry out some computational work half way through my PhD and I forgot to go back! So if simulations count then the last batch I ran were related to a kind of spiral pattern that I’d previously observed in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. In the experiments it behaved in a way that had never been reported before that we couldn’t obviously explain. We couldn’t reproduce its behaviour in the simulations no matter what we tried!

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book, and one CD would you take with you?

My book choice is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. It introduced me to the concept of “Top 5s”, the greatest pub game ever (if it needs explanation it’s basically just listing your top 5 songs, films, papers in Nature this year, 1970 cop shows, etc.). As for music, it would be Definitely Maybe by Oasis; a classic.

Gavin Armstrong is an Associate Editor for Nature Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

The serious but predictable answer is a couple of really good science teachers, so thanks should go to the inspirational Andrew Munro and Jeremy Bushrod. The fun answer is John Nettles. I guess I should qualify that answer. It was my enthusiasm for a variety of TV cop shows – I use the term broadly to encompass a whole variety of mystery drama that initially made me consider forensic science as a career. Thankfully one or both of the above teachers encouraged me to keep my options open and study something broader – like chemistry. It’s a relief that at university I became more interested in organic chemistry, since I’ve saved myself from needing to be an expert in pathology, ballistics, analytical chemistry and all the other multi-talents exhibited by the average main character in these shows. Don’t get me wrong, I still watch these things, but the truth about the science gets heavily bent by the writer’s artistic licence.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I’m now too old to dream about becoming a professional sportsman of any sort, but whilst at the University of Sheffield, I took up playing snooker. I’m not good enough to do that professionally either, but I think I could make a decent stab at being a referee. I’d get to travel the world while doing something I love, and everyday would be different. The similarities to being a journal editor are quite frankly astonishing.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

Aside from the obvious – solutions to disease, food shortage, energy, etc. – I think it would be great if we could dispel some of the myths about science. I’m forever disappointed that science is presented in schools as a long list of undeniable facts – the result of which is that many people who potentially could be great scientists are turned off at an early age and never return.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of modern science philosophy. In many ways this relates to my answer to question 3. I’d also like to be able to check and dispel the myth that he was Shakespeare.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

In the midst of the sink of entropy that was my fume cupboard – ask any who have shared a lab with me – it was probably a diazo-thioketone coupling reaction that is the cornerstone of making some of the light driven molecular motors of the Feringa group. I was rather pleased as I achieved a >90% yield in a reaction that was often problematic, although I think the particular combination of reactants I was using was the telling factor.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

Queens’s greatest hits – I’m not sure how this works, but I know from experience that with time all music kept in a car becomes a Queen CD. I thought perhaps taking this with me would mean I would have access to a whole selection of music. As for the book – March’s Organic chemistry! No, seriously I’d have to take a fairly hefty tome though, I rarely read a book twice and I’d need something to keep me going for a long while once I realised that the Queen CD was a bad idea. Perhaps a survival guide might be a good idea as well – particularly if it included instructions on how to build a raft out of coconut shells.

Stephen Davey is an Associate Editor for Nature Chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

As a child I remember being given a chemistry set and spending many hours in the family greenhouse mixing different coloured liquids and causing things to heat and sometimes burn (much to the horror of my parents!). This fascination of exothermic reactions continued throughout school and then it was a hard decision between chemistry and physics. I ended up choosing chemistry as there were more girls on that course at the time.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I would definitely like to be a travel writer as I love to visit new places and experience different cultures, so to get paid to do this would be fantastic. However, if I am thinking about my carbon footprint, and about seeing my family, then I would most probably open up a tea shop, so I could sell the cakes that I love to bake (and eat).

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

In addition to the current push to reduce pollution and improve the environment, I think chemists play a key role in improving health, quality of life and every day well being. I see this as not only making more effective medicinal treatments that are available to all, but also small things like improved material properties and personal care products.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Well, the obvious one would be Dorothy Hodgkin as I think she managed to make such a contribution to science, inspire her students and raise her family at the same time and I would like to ask her how she did it! Although if I just had to choose one then it would be Leonardo da Vinci as he was such a great thinker and a pioneer in so many areas including science, anatomy and engineering. I think it would be so fascinating to find out what influenced and inspired him. I believe he was also the first to really take inspiration from nature to create highly functional materials & systems, which is something highly relevant to my research area today!

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

Ermm? I am ashamed to say that it was a while ago! I did some cryo-transmission electron microscopy with our collaborators in Helsinki, Finland about two years ago on a protein hydrogel. My student was with me though (and she also showed me what to do!) so I am not sure that counts. On the other hand I made some dough for a pizza last night, so you could say my last experiment was fermentation.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

Unfortunately I don’t a great deal of spare time for reading at the moment between work & having two young children who believe they should only sleep when it gets dark (great for winter, not so good for long summer nights!)! If I had to choose one however, it would be the last Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling. Choosing one CD is hard as I have quite eclectic tastes, but I should be true to my roots and choose the Scottish band Deacon Blue as they would instill passion for me to find a way back home!

Aline Miller is in the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre at the University of Manchester, UK, and works on understanding how nature uses self-assembly to create functional nanomaterials and attempts to mimic and exploit this in synthetic systems.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I was good at science and maths, art and tennis but had to get a job, and science in the 60s was a much better bet that art – I also lost too often at tennis. The number of career avenues open to kids in those days was much less then. I also had very good chemistry and art teachers. Wilf Jary and Harry Heaney at (Bolton) School and Mr Higginson for art. Harry Heaney subsequently left school teaching and became a Professor of Chemistry at Loughborough University

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

Almost certainly some field of graphic art and design. I do a lot of this now. Also, probably animation and science documentary – see www.vega.org.uk and www.geoset.info. I did have an interview with the BBC in 1964 but I wanted to live abroad so I decided to do a postdoc in Canada. They suggested I see them if and when I came back.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

Chemists have made some of the most humanitarian contributions to society. Liebig (of condenser fame) advised the City of London on the chemical treatment of sewage and before this the Thames was so bad you died if you fell in it – it was so polluted. Crawford Long and others developed anaesthetics – imagine having a leg amputated without anaesthetics – as happened routinely before the 19th century (Image browse on Google Rowlinson’s drawings to get an idea).

Before 1942 when Florey, Heatley and Chain developed ways of making penicillin in large amounts (Fleming did not do any development on his discovery) blood poisoning routinely led to amputation and/or death. I am not sure but some estimates indicate that 70% of the world’s food is produced using fertilisers made by the Haber-Bosch process. What would the modern world be without modern polymers or had we not learned how to grow large crystals of silicon to make the wafers for computer chips. Aspirin and platinum anti-cancer drugs have been great contributions too as has Taxol developed by my FSU colleague Bob Holton. There have been so many wonderful contributions one can be proud of being a chemist.

Unfortunately some chemists have made anti-humanitarian contributions. I was terribly disappointed when I learned that Louis Fieser – who had written the fantastic text book on Organic Chemistry (Fieser & Fieser) that I had bought when I was a kid at school and had read from cover to cover – had invented napalm. I try to encourage young students of science to distance themselves from this sort of application – I do not call it science – and focus on humanitarian contributions. Haber’s reputation has also been tarnished by his development of nerve gas. I ask young people would they not rather be almost unknown heroes such as Norman Heatley who did all the key penicillin experiments and has saved millions of lives and limbs.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

I have relocated to the US and learned a lot about the birth of the US and have developed a great admiration for the so-called founding fathers. I would like to discuss their concerns and how they formulated the US Bill of Rights and the US Constitution – fantastic creations. I would like to have dinner with three of them Thomas Paine who lived for a while in my home town Lewes and wrote the Rights of Man; Benjamin Franklin a scientist and really the first American – who lived in London for nearly 20 years and was terribly treated just before the Revolution and Thomas Jefferson who recognised that there can be no democracy if Church and State are not separate. This latter point is of great importance today.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

I must admit that I have so many commitments that unfortunately my co-workers tend to do most of the hands-on experimental work now though I occasionally have been involved with electron microscope observations.

I have not had a lab for the last 3 years as I had to retire from my position at Sussex. I have just got a beautiful lab in a great new building at Florida State University. The last time I did an experiment all by myself with no help from anyone else!!! was in 1990 when I at last had a sample of C₆₀ in my hands. In our C₆₀ discovery paper in 1985 we had conjectured that C₆₀ might be a superlubricant. After all, we thought(!!!) that as flat graphite is a lubricant – round graphite should be even better. When I took the sample and pressed it with a spatula on a glass slide it behaved like grit – disappointingly. I could not understand this until I learned that graphite is not a lubricant unless air and water intercalate between the layers – for instance it cannot be used at high altitude or on the space shuttle. I discovered that the text books are incorrect on this – the interlayer forces are not weak and graphene layers do not slide over each other in vacuo.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

I think I would take an introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics (maybe Feynman’s) as I would want to go the next step on from Quantum Mechanics which I vaguely know a bit about already – at least enough to analyse molecular spectra and fool some people into thinking I understand QM.

If I could also take a guitar I think I would take a James Taylor LP so I could try to improve my ability – which is very limited to play the guitar. I guess it would have to take his (Live) album or Greatest hits album as I would want Carolina in my Mind as well as Sweet Baby James which are on his first two albums.

Sir Harry Kroto is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University, and works on the mechanisms of self-assembly at nanoscale dimensions, the species which exist in carbon vapour – there are hundreds and at least 5 families, the stabilisation of small fullerenes and nanotube applications.