JOHN B. DEADENOUGH
For every Australian MP or supporting cast member of a 70s US sitcom assured a QO by our increasingly lax UK media landscape, one field that’s decreased in obitability is science Nobel laureates. Winning the dynamite gong for chemistry or physics went from “assured Telegraph obit within a month” in 2013 to “waiting for Godot” today, but co-inventing the lithium-ion battery provided John B. Goodenough enough charge to buck the trend. Or maybe it was the Chuck Berry song about him.
Goodenough built upon M. Stanley Whittingham’s pioneering work by giving the rechargeable lithium-ion battery higher capacity, while Akira Yoshino fine-tuned it further to make it safe for commercial use. The three shared the Chemistry Nobel in 2019, and accorded Goodenough, then 97, the eyecatching “oldest ever Nobel laureate” distinction. His death aged 100 revitalises two teams.
John B. Goodenough
25 July 1922 – 25 June 2023, aged 100
2 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀 4 POINTS)