James Lovelock, Beautiful Mind, Dyslexic, Major Scientific Discoveries
James Lovelock – Well known for Gaia Theory and his invention the Electron Capture Device -- Here he speaks of his own dyslexia (including confusing left and right). From the “Beautiful Mind” video series on You Tube.
Just revisited this wonderful documentary on James Lovelock. He is said to have narrowly missed receiving a Nobel Prize related to his early work with CFCs, using his invention, the electron capture device. Also, his Gaia Theory has been quite controversial but many scientists now see it as a major discovery in understanding how our planet makes life possible.
Dictated to MS Word based on my notes from section (starting at time 20:00 of 58:40 total) where Lovelock talks of his boyhood memories of learning basic chemistry in the basement of the Brixton Library in London; his father’s gift of a box of “tricks” with wires, batteries, etc.; how he learned much from doing fire watch duty with top scientists at his research institute during WWII; how his dyslexia was linked to his difficulty with telling left from right, the reason why he was slow on certain exams, so could not pass. -- TGW
He said he was learning magic at the basement of Brixton library… “I don’t think I understood much, but at that age your mind is a sponge. It stays in your machine language memory for the rest of your life. So that from then onwards, my mind had a complete understanding of the positions of all the chemicals, and their properties, although I did not even know what the properties were. But later on when I became a professional chemist, then all of that knowledge was there instantly accessible whenever I needed it.”
“Why did I choose chemistry as my subject in science? After all if you go back to the box of tricks my father gave me, that’s the box of wires and stuff, that was physics not chemistry. Why did I not go into physics? It so happens that I am dyslexic, and not seriously. I cannot tell left from right is one of the peculiarities. It also meant that in mathematics, I could never tell which side of an equation I am on. And in finding in the answer, the solution, this is quite a handicap. You can get there by just testing trying both ways to see which one is right. But this takes an awful lot of time. And when it comes to examinations, if you are slow, you don’t pass.”
“I was fascinated with physics and math much more than chemistry but I realized because of the slowness in handling mathematics I could not satisfy the examiners on physical things. The best way of thinking of it, is that I had fallen in love with science at some age I wanted it around me as you want a loved one nearby. . .”
From the narrator: “Although he had studied chemistry, Lovelock always had seen science as a single entity.” Lovelock then tells the stories of the fire watching duty during World War II when the top scientists he had worked with would do “a brain dump” of their major work while the buzz bombs were flying over their heads.
