Doctoral treats and moneyed scientists
Using the flipbook package for LaTeX, the program he used to write and lay out his thesis, Thompson added the simple schematic to the margins of his pages. And was his hard work noticed? While it wasn’t mentioned during his PhD defense, one of his examiners congratulated Thompson on the images afterward.
Andre St. Amant, now at Harvard University, admitted to using a Game of Thrones quotation to describe cyclopentadienes, while Andryj Borys used relevant lines from different Arnold Schwarzenegger films in each of his chapters. More romantically, Twitter user @KalliC used her thesis title “For the Love of SAM” to refer to the analogs of S-adenosyl methionine that she worked with and her wife’s first name.
Future British chemists who want to add a bit of currency to their theses, as a reward for themselves or another reader, could also add a bit of science if they use a new scientific £50 note. The Bank of England recently asked the public to nominate scientists to be featured on the next design of the note, the largest denomination in the UK. In total, nearly 1,000 eligible scientists were nominated, and the chosen scientist will be announced this summer.
See the full story here: https://cen.acs.org/education/graduate-education/Doctoral-treats-moneyed-scientists/97/i2