Catalysts are the conductors who choreograph the chemical dance that results in the formation of new structures.

Catalysts offer the promise of making chemical transformations far less polluting.

As I grew older, farms in Kentucky provided me with many jobs in hauling hay and in cutting tobacco. In addition to helping fund my college years, these jobs helped me to meet an array of very interesting and amazing men and women.

Polymer chemistry provides an excellent means of studying metathesis catalysts: miniscule catalyst loadings have the capacity to generate large amounts of polymeric material, the structure of which can provide a historical record of catalyst activity.

I was born at home in rural Kentucky, in 1942, in a house that my father Howard had built. He did most of the construction himself and built it on land that his father had given him when he married my mother Faye.

Look tonight at the stars. Let them overwhelm you in the postures of their bright dance. Face the vastness which they dot like silver bees, and sound with your own brain the mystery, hazarding at the inscrutable plan of things.