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Acceptance of the 2001 Clair C. Patterson award
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 66, No. 4, p. 555, 2002 Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0016-7037/02 $22.00 ⫹ .00
Pergamon PII S0016-7037(01)00769-4
Acceptance of the 2001 Clair C. Patterson Award FRANC¸ OIS M. M. MOREL Department of Geosciences, Guyot Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
seminars whenever I went back to visit the campus. All of you (or at least most of you) know of Clair’s great scientific contributions. Clair Patterson, of course, is the one who first gave us an accurate estimate for the age of the earth. He is also the one who, by the example of his work on lead and his hortatory advice to friends and colleagues, revolutionized the whole field of trace element geochemistry. Published concentrations for many trace elements in the environment should have an AP/PP designation: ante-patterson and postpatterson. What perhaps only few of you know about Clair Patterson is how much of an original he was, how much a free and independent spirit. And this is what I wish to focus on as I conclude my very brief remarks. In accepting the Patterson award, I hope that, through some magic, I might inherit a little bit of Clair Patterson’s spirit. More specifically, I wish that I might inherit—and help pass on to the next generation— one essential quality: the healthy disrespect for intellectual authority that is the basis of any original science. Thank you, Dianne. Thanks to the Geochemical Society. . . Thank you all.
Thank you, Dianne, for your kind words. Thank you also for continuing to be a source of both intellectual challenge and pride to your old advisor. It feels wonderful, of course, to listen to this flattering and quite exaggerated citation. It is indeed an honor to think that some of my colleagues have judged me worthy of the Patterson award. But you all know the truth. You know that the work that is being recognized by this award was actually done by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The scientific community is very effectively organized and we have a wonderful division of labor: they do the work; I get the award. To rectify this situation a little bit, let me recognize among numerous talented ex-students and postdocs, three who are here at the Goldschmidt Conference and whose association with me spans pretty much my entire career: Diane McKnight, who teaches at the University of Colorado; Tina Voelker, who teaches at MIT; and, of course, Dianne Newman, who now teaches in the very GPS Division at Caltech where Clair Patterson spent most of his career. I had the pleasure of knowing Clair Patterson when I was a student at Caltech many years ago and he regularly came to my
555
Pergamon PII S0016-7037(01)00769-4
Acceptance of the 2001 Clair C. Patterson Award FRANC¸ OIS M. M. MOREL Department of Geosciences, Guyot Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
seminars whenever I went back to visit the campus. All of you (or at least most of you) know of Clair’s great scientific contributions. Clair Patterson, of course, is the one who first gave us an accurate estimate for the age of the earth. He is also the one who, by the example of his work on lead and his hortatory advice to friends and colleagues, revolutionized the whole field of trace element geochemistry. Published concentrations for many trace elements in the environment should have an AP/PP designation: ante-patterson and postpatterson. What perhaps only few of you know about Clair Patterson is how much of an original he was, how much a free and independent spirit. And this is what I wish to focus on as I conclude my very brief remarks. In accepting the Patterson award, I hope that, through some magic, I might inherit a little bit of Clair Patterson’s spirit. More specifically, I wish that I might inherit—and help pass on to the next generation— one essential quality: the healthy disrespect for intellectual authority that is the basis of any original science. Thank you, Dianne. Thanks to the Geochemical Society. . . Thank you all.
Thank you, Dianne, for your kind words. Thank you also for continuing to be a source of both intellectual challenge and pride to your old advisor. It feels wonderful, of course, to listen to this flattering and quite exaggerated citation. It is indeed an honor to think that some of my colleagues have judged me worthy of the Patterson award. But you all know the truth. You know that the work that is being recognized by this award was actually done by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The scientific community is very effectively organized and we have a wonderful division of labor: they do the work; I get the award. To rectify this situation a little bit, let me recognize among numerous talented ex-students and postdocs, three who are here at the Goldschmidt Conference and whose association with me spans pretty much my entire career: Diane McKnight, who teaches at the University of Colorado; Tina Voelker, who teaches at MIT; and, of course, Dianne Newman, who now teaches in the very GPS Division at Caltech where Clair Patterson spent most of his career. I had the pleasure of knowing Clair Patterson when I was a student at Caltech many years ago and he regularly came to my
555