Professor, 97, Becomes Oldest Nobel Prize Winner for Co-Creating Rechargeable Battery
John Goodenough made history as the oldest person to ever receive a Nobel Prize.
Goodenough, who won the 2019 Nobel Prize for chemistry, is 97 years old and passed the previous record-holder Arthur Ashkin, who won last year for physics at age 96.
“Live to 97 and you can do anything,” Goodenough said in a statement, according to CNN. “I’m honored and humbled to win the Nobel Prize. I thank all my friends for the support and assistance throughout my life.”
Goodenough won his prize jointly with M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for “the development of lithium-ion batteries.”
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement that the trio’s work has “laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil-fuel-free society,” and that Goodenough in particular “doubled the lithium battery’s potential, creating the right conditions for a vastly more powerful and useful battery.”
Goodenough, Whittingham and Yoshino will split the approximately $915,000 prize three ways, and will receive their cash, a medal and a certificate at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.
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Born in Germany in 1922, Goodenough currently works as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering.
He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and is a 1944 graduate of Yale University, according to the Yale Daily News.
“I’m extremely happy the lithium-ion batteries [have] helped communications around the world,” Goodenough told reporters, according to CNN. “We are indeed happy that people use this for good and not evil.”
Meanwhile, there’s a good chance that this year will also set another new record: Should Greta Thunberg, 16, receive the Nobel Peace Prize, she will be the youngest person to ever win.
