Science: America's Nobel Sweep

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Triple Crown. Lipscomb, 56. learned of his award when his students burst into his cluttered office to congratulate him. He was inspired to do the work that led to his Nobel, he recalls, when as a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, he heard his professor, Linus Pauling—who has since won the Nobel chemistry and peace prizes—explain how boron compounds were bound together chemically. Intrigued by what seemed an incomplete explanation, he used Pauling's own techniques to study the compounds further. He discovered that boranes, the complex chemicals that combine boron and hydrogen molecules, were, bonded differently from other chemicals. That discovery led to his finding that borane molecules were polyhedral, or many sided, and to a new understanding of how a host of new chemical compounds could be constructed.

Lipscomb's work could have an impact on medicine; experiments are under way in the use of boranes in cancer therapy, and Lipscomb is now using his techniques to determine how digestive enzymes work. Lipscomb is as many faceted as his molecules; he is a tennis buff, plays the clarinet in local chamber orchestras, and is a genuine Kentucky colonel. His own concern about his Nobel: "I'm afraid everyone will think I'm finished, but I still have so much more to do."

Other American scientists also have much to do if they want the U.S. to continue to dominate the international science Olympics; 26 of the 56 physics Nobel laureates in the past 20 years have been Americans, and the U.S. has twice before captured the triple crown by winning the Nobel prizes for physics, chemistry and medicine. But their competitors may start catching up. M.I.T. President Jerome Wiesner, for one, says that European and Japanese science is "on the upswing, and we should expect to see the balance change in their direction." At the same time, he feels, U.S. science is being hampered by budget squeezes, causing U.S. scientists to waste their intellectual resources looking for handouts. Says he: "The whole climate is unhealthy. When you are in a car you can tell if it is accelerating or decelerating. We in the science car know that, even though it is still running pretty well, it is decelerating."

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