Lectures from the Australian standpoint

摘要

I try to avoid the banality of merely covering anniversaries in my essays, but this 90th anniversary caught my attention and met my other criteria for 'interesting'. It concerns John Read (1884-1963) and his time as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Sydney. When Robert Robinson left in 1915, after just a couple of years as the inaugural incumbent of that chair, the university turned to Read, who had been number two on the originaL list and had continued his work at Cambridge. Despite a heavy lecture load. Read researched and published on organic chemistry and on the history of chemistry. His 1936 book Prelude to chemistry was a chemist's guide to alchemy.