Watch for NOVA's rerun of "Forgotten Genius" in your area ... or watch it online ...

[eppur_se_muova]

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/forgotten-genius/

The forgotten genius in this case is Percy Julian, a groundbreaking AA chemist.

OK, I have to admit to a certain amount of prejudice here -- I am, after all, a chemist, and an organic chemist at that -- and one whose primary interest for many years was in organic synthesis, as was Julian's (Oh, and we're both native sons of AL, if that means anything) so I do have an unusual degree of interest in this program. But I hope others will find it interesting, even inspiring, and might follow up other links and pointers to the material on Percy's life and career collected by NOVA and the ACS (regrettably, one of the links is already broken).


ETA: A quick read -- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/julian/producer.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. It was on a couple of nights ago in DC. I caught it by accident.

It went on way past my bedtime, but I watched the whole thing.

[Collimator]

2. Yes, I saw that program.

It was both inspiring and heartbreaking, as so many stories are. I found a twisted humor in the fact that violent opponents of Dr. Julian twice tried to attack the doctor's house using chemical means and essentially failed. If they had his knowledge and expertise of chemistry they might have succeeded.

My only complaint is that Dr. Julian has one of those names--like Trevor Noah's--that I will inexorably mix up during some enthusiastic conversation. Sometime, somewhere along the line, I just know that I'm going to call him Dr. Julian Percy.