The amazing life of a chemical autodidact: Noble Laureate Paul Crutzen.

[NNadir]

I was discussing atmospheric chemistry today and when contemplating the subject of CFC's and ozone depletion, the name of Mario Molina, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry popped into my mind. I was inspired to look up Molina's Nobel autobiography when I fell upon the names of his co-winners for that prize. I had never read the biography of Paul Crutzen, but this would be a fascinating life even were he not a Nobel calibre scientist:

My mother's parents moved to the industrial Ruhr region in Germany from East Prussia towards the end of the last century. They were of mixed German and Polish origin. In 1929 at the age of 17, my mother, moved to Amsterdam to work as a housekeeper...

...In May, 1940, The Netherlands were overrun by the German army. In September of the same year I entered elementary school, "de grote school" (the big school), as it was popularly called. My six years of elementary school largely overlapped with the 2nd World War. Our school class had to move between different premises in Amsterdam after the German army had confiscated our original school building. The last months of the war, between the fall of 1944 and Liberation Day on May, 5, 1945, were particularly horrible...

...Many died of hunger and disease, including several of my schoolmates...

...chemistry definitely was not one of my favourite subjects...

...I read widely about travels in distant lands, about astronomy, as well as about bridges and tunnels. Unfortunately, because of a heavy fever, my grades in the final exam of the HBS were not good enough to qualify for a university study stipend, which was very hard to obtain at that time, only 6 years after the end of the 2nd world war and a few years after the end of colonial war in Indonesia...

Check it out: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1995/crutzen-autobio.html