Centenarian legend
Having featured the world’s youngest publishing scientists on this site, it's only fair that we turn our attention to the oldest. At the age of 102, it will be a hard record to beat.
Ray Crist was born in March 1900 and retired in 2004, that’s a pretty long working life. He was brought up in Pennsylvania, where he attended college, before graduating in chemistry at Columbia University.
He published his first research paper in 1924 on photochemical reactions - his last paper, on metal-ion uptake by lignin (the structural support in plant cell walls), was published in 2002 at the grand old age of 102. At that time, he was a visiting professor of environmental science at Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania.
His work on how algae, peat moss, and plant roots take up metal ions, has become crucial in developing new ideas and furthering our knowledge of the subject.
Crist has also had to work around certain problems; he had no vision in his right eye in his later years, and had to stop driving at the age of 87. Luckily, other faculty members and friends drove him to campus every day for his 40-hour weeks all year round.
Sadly, he died earlier this year, but his work over some 80 years leaves a legacy that others will surely build on. He was always concerned with energy, on which is said:
“Science and technology have brought us to a place where energy is now a major concern. We ought to be figuring out how to better use the solar energy of today instead of the solar energy stored in plants long ago”.
Crist knows how he put up with academia for so long - we certainly couldn’t!
Can you beat Ray Crist’s record? Bring out your old scientists and let us know.
Share this
