Quick Links
Negishi receives Honorary Degree from Purdue
Purdue University professor and 2010 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Ei-ichi Negishi was presented an honorary doctorate degree in science during commencement ceremonies Saturday (May 12) in Purdue's Elliott Hall of Music. Purdue President France A. Córdova asked Negishi to say a few words, and he obliged with a message to inspire graduates. “Looking back, I was very happy to receive a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tokyo,” he said about his own 1958 commencement. “But was I full of confidence then? No. Perhaps more anxiety than confidence because I did not study as much as I should.” Negishi explained that the chance of winning a Nobel was one in 10 million, and as a young researcher he fretted that he may have missed the chance to uncover groundbreaking discoveries in organic chemistry. Yet, in the late 1970s he found how a metal-based reaction called the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling makes an efficient synthesis of complex organic molecules. That earned him a chemistry Nobel in 2010. Despite those odds, he expected many in the audience had better odds, perhaps one in 10,000. “But if you are one of them, go for it,” Negishi exclaimed. “By all means. After all, nothing may be achieved or reached unless you dream about it and keep trying with eternal optimism. Go for it.”
Sources:
|
|
