Alan Graham MacDiarmid ONZ (14 April 1927 – 7 February 2007) was a chemist, and one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000.

Early life[link]

He was born in Masterton, New Zealand as one of five children – three brothers and two sisters. His family was relatively poor, and the Great Depression made life difficult in Masterton, due to which his family shifted to Lower Hutt, a few miles from Wellington, New Zealand. At around age ten, he developed an interest in chemistry from one of his father's old textbooks, and he taught himself from this book and from library books. He was educated at Hutt Valley High School and Victoria University of Wellington.^[1]

Career[link]

In 1943, MacDiarmid passed the University of New Zealand's University Entrance Exam and its Medical Preliminary Exam.^[2] He then took up a part-time job as a "lab boy" or janitor in Victoria University of Wellington, during his studies for a BSc degree, which he completed in 1947.^[2] He was then appointed demonstrator in the undergraduate laboratories.^[2] After completing an MSc in chemistry from the same university, he later worked as an assistant in its chemistry department.^[1] It was here that he had his first publication in 1949, in the scientific journal Nature.^[2] He graduated in 1951 with first class honours, and won a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He majored in inorganic chemistry, receiving his M.S. degree in 1952 and his PhD in 1953. He then won a Shell Graduate Scholarship, which enabled him to go to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he completed a second PhD in 1955.^[1]

MacDiarmid worked in the School of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews in Scotland for a year as a member of the junior faculty. He then took a faculty position in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he became a full Professor in 1964. MacDiarmid spent the greater part of his career on the chemistry faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught for 45 years.^[1] The first twenty years of his research there focused on silicon chemistry.^{[citation needed]} He was named Blanchard Professor of Chemistry in 1988.^[3]

In 2002, MacDiarmid also joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Dallas.^[4]

Contributions to chemistry[link]

Conductive polymers[link]

His best-known research was the discovery and development of conductive polymers — plastic materials that conduct electricity. He collaborated with the Japanese chemist Hideki Shirakawa and the American physicist Alan Heeger in this research and published the first results in 1977.^[5] The three of them shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.^[6][7][8][9]

The Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery that plastics can, after certain modifications, be made electrically conductive. The work progressed to yield important practical applications. Conductive plastics can be used for anti-static substances for photographic film and 'smart' windows that can exclude sunlight. Semi-conductive polymers have been applied in light-emitting diodes, solar cells and displays in mobile telephones. Future developments in molecular electronics are predicted to dramatically increase the speed and reduce the size of computers.

Other[link]

MacDiarmid also travelled around the world for speaking engagements that impressed upon listeners the value of globalising the effort of innovation in the 21st century. In one of his last courses, in 2001, MacDiarmid elected to lead a small seminar of incoming freshmen about his research activities. Overall, his name is on over 600 published papers and 20 patents.^[4] MacDiarmid was also active as a naturist and nudist, and considered himself a sun-worshipper and keen waterskier.^[10][11][12]

Death[link]

Towards the end of his life, MacDiarmid was ill with myelodysplastic syndrome. In early February 2007, he was planning to journey back to New Zealand, when he fell down the stairs in his home in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.^[13] He died on 7 February 2007.^[14] He is buried at Arlington Cemetery Co in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.

MacDiarmid's first wife, Marian Mathieu, whom he had married in 1954,^[2] died in 1990. He is survived by four children: Heather McConnell, Dawn Hazelett, Duncan MacDiarmid and Gail Williams, from their marriage and nine grandchildren: Dr. Sean McConnell, Dr. Ryan McConnell, Rebecca McConnell, Clayton Hazelett, Wesley Hazelett, Langston MacDiarmid, Aubree Williams, Austin Williams and George Williams. MacDiarmid is also survived by his second wife, Gayl Gentile, whom he had married in 2005.^[4]

Recognition[link]

• Victoria University of Wellington gave MacDiarmid an honorary doctorate in 1999 and in 2001 created the Alan MacDiarmid Chair in Physical Chemistry.^[2] The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and the Alan MacDiarmid building, opened in May 2010, at the university are named after him.
• Awarded the 1999 American Chemical Society Award in Materials Chemistry.^[15]
• In 2000 the Royal Society of New Zealand awarded him its top honour, the Rutherford Medal.^[2]
• In 2002, he was elected a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
• In 2002, he became a member of the Order of New Zealand, which is the highest honour the country awards.^[2]
• In 2004, he received the Friendship Award, the highest honour of the People's Republic of China for foreign experts.^[16]
• The Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas was named after him posthumously in 2007.
• The Alan G. MacDiarmid Institute at Jilin University in China was named after him since 2001.

Selected publications[link]

• Chiang, C.K.; Druy, M.A.; Gau, S.C.; Heeger, A.J.; Louis, E.J.; MacDiarmid, A.G.; Park, Y.W.; Shirakawa, H., "Synthesis of Highly Conducting Films of Derivatives of Polyacetylene, (CH)x," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 100, 1013 (1978).
• Chiang, J.-C., and MacDiarmid, A.G., "Polyaniline': Protonic Acid Doping of the Emeraldine Form to the Metallic Regime," Synth. Met., 13, 193 (1986).
• MacDiarmid, A.G.; Chiang, J.-C.; Richter, A.F.; Epstein, A.J., "Polyaniline: A New Concept in Conducting Polymers," Synth. Met., 18, 285 (1987).
• MacDiarmid, A.G., Yang, L.S., Huang, W.-S., and Humphrey, B.D., "Polyaniline: Electrochemistry and Application to Rechargeable Batteries". Synth. Met., 18, 393 (1987).
• Kaner, R.B.; MacDiarmid, A.G., "Plastics That Conduct Electricity," Scientific American, 106 (February 1988).
• MacDiarmid, A.G.; Epstein, A.J., " 'Synthetic Metals': A Novel Role for Organic Polymers," Macromol. Chem., 51, 11 (1991).
• MacDiarmid, A.G.; Epstein, A.J., "Science and Technology of Conducting Polymers," in Frontiers of Polymer Research, P.N. Prasad and J.K. Nigam, Eds., Plenum Press, New York, 1991, p. 259.
• Wang, Z.H.; Li, C.; Scherr, E.M.; MacDiarmid, A.G.; Epstein, A.J., "Three Dimensionality of 'Metallic' States in Conducting Polymers: Polyaniline," Phys. Rev. Lett., 66, 1745 (1991).
• MacDiarmid, A.J.; Epstein, A.J., "The Concept of Secondary Doping as Applied to Polyaniline," Synth. Met., 65, 103 (1994).
• MacDiarmid, A.G., Zhou, Y., Feng, J., Furst, G.T., and Shedlow, A.M., "Isomers and Isomerization Processes in Poly-Anilines," Proc. ANTEC '99, Soc. Plastics Engr., 2, 1563 (1999).
• MacDiarmid, A.G., Norris, I.D., Jones, J.W.E., El-Sherif, M.A., Yuan, J., Han, B. and Ko, F.K., "Polyaniline Based Chemical Transducers with Sub-micron Dimensions," Polymeric Mat. Sci. & Eng., 83, 544 (2000).
• Norris, I.D., Shaker, M.M., Ko, F.K., and MacDiarmid, A.G., "Electrostatic Fabrication of Ultrafine Conducting Fibers: Polyaniline/Polyethylene Oxide Blends," Synth. Met., 114, 2 (2000).
• MacDiarmid, A.G., Jones, J.W.E., Norris, I.D., Gao, J., Johnson, J.A.T., Pinto, N.J., Hone, J., Han, B., Ko, F.K., Okuzaki, H., and Llaguno, M., "Electrostatically-Generated Nanofibers of Electronic Polymers," Synth. Met., 119, 27–30 (2001).
• Shimano, J.Y., and MacDiarmid, A.G., "Phase Segregation in Polyaniline: A Dynamic Block Copolymer," Synth. Met., 119, 365–366 (2001).
• Wang, P.C., and MacDiarmid, A.G., "Dependency of Properties of In Situ Deposited Polypyrrole Films on Dopant Anion and Substrate Surface," Synth. Met., 119, 267–268 (2001).
• Hohnholz, D., and MacDiarmid, A.G., "Line Patterning of Conducting Polymers: New Horizons for Inexpensive, Disposable Electronic Devices," Synth. Met., 121, 1327–1328 (2001).
• Premvardhan, L., Peteanu, L.A., Wang, P.-C., and MacDiarmid, A.G., "Electronic Properties of the Conducting Form of Polyaniline from Electroabsorption Measurements," Synth. Met., 116, 157–161 (2001).
• MacDiarmid, A.G. “Twenty-five Years of Conducting Polymers”. Chem. Comm., 1–4 (2003).
• Tanner, D.B.; Doll, G.L.; Rao, A.M.; Eklund, P.C.; Arbuckle, G.A.; MacDiarmid, A.G. “Optical properties of potassium-doped polyacetylene”. Synth. Met., 141, 75–79 (2004).
• Hohnholz, D.; Okuzaki,H.; MacDiarmid, A.G. “Plastic electronic devices through line patterning of conducting polymers”. Adv. Funct. Mater., 15, 51–56 (2005).
• Venancio, E.C; Wang, P-C.; MacDiarmid, A.G. “The Azanes: A Class of Material Incorporating Nano/Micro Self-Assembled Hollow Spheres Obtained By Aqueous Oxidative Polymerization of Aniline”. Synth. Met., 156, 357 (2006).
• MacDiarmid, A.G.; Venancio, E.C. “Agrienergy (Agriculture/Energy): What Does the Future Hold?”. Experimental Biology and Medicine., 231, 1212 (2006).

References[link]

External links[link]

• Biography on Nobel Prize website
• MacDiarmid Nobel Prize lecture
• McDiarmid Institute Web Site
• MacDiarmid's Page at The University of Texas at Dallas
• MacDiarmid's page at the University of Pennsylvania
• New Zealand Edge biography
• List of MacDiarmid's publications
• Interview with Alan MacDiarmid Freeview video provided by the Vega Science Trust.
• Kiwi Nobel winner MacDiarmid dies
• Alan Graham MacDiarmid biography from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

further readings[link]

• Holmes, Andrew (2007). "Obituary: Alan Graham MacDiarmid (1927–2007)". Nature 446 (7134): 390. DOI:10.1038/446390a. PMID 17377574. 
• "Alan G. MacDiarmid". Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering 15: 296. 2011. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13160&page=296. 
• "Interview with Alan G. MacDiarmid". http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/collections/oral-histories/details/macdiarmid-alan-g.aspx. 

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Barry Tebb is an English poet, publisher and author. He was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire in 1942.

His poetry was first published by Alan Tarling's 'Poet and Printer Press' in the sixties, along with Ted Hughes, Michael Longley and Ian Crichton Smith. His first collection was praised by John Carey in the New Statesman and his work was included in the Penguin anthology Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain.

After a twenty year writer's block he began to write again in 1990. Appalled by the state of poetry publishing he founded Sixties Press in 1993 which has published over forty books and pamphlets.

Tebb's own Selected Poems, The lights of Leeds was published by Redbeck Press in 2001.

Among the many writers Sixties Press has published are Daisy Abey (first novel Like the Wind, 2003, republished by Vijitha Yapa in Sri Lanka in 2005 and given enthisiastic reviews by, among others, Carl Muller, in the Daily News): one of her poems has been chosen for the Norton Anthology Eastern Voices to be published in 2007.^{[dated info]} Other poets published by the press include Kim Taplin, Debjani Chaterjee, Thomas Blackburn, James Simmons, Jon Silkin, W.D.Snodgrass, Martin Bell, Mark Floyer, Michael Haslam, Jeremy Reed, John Horder, John Heath Stubbs, Edward Lucie Smith and Brenda Williams.

Tebb's novel Pitfall Street chronicles his upbringing in 40s working class Leeds (where Peter O'Toole, Richard Hoggart, Tony Harrison, Keith Waterhouse also grew up)and gives a hilarious account of the many Gregory Fellows in Poetry at Leeds University he knew well, especially Peter Redgrove and Jon Silkin. With Debjani Chatterjee he edited The Sixties Press Anthology of Gregory Fellows Poetry. His autobiography, The Fiddler and His Bow appeared in 2005 and 'The Nostalgia Bus: Collected Poems and Selected Prose' will appear in late 2007. Tebb is also a passionate campaigner (with Brenda Williams) for better mental health services. His Life and Death in Camden and Censored in Camden attest to this.

He has edited two major anthologies of poetry and prose, Beyond Stigma and The Real Survivors Anthology. Now an OAP he devotes his time to being a carer, writing, campaigning and editing. He has over 100 Google listings and runs six websites, including www.sixtiespress.co.uk and www.criticalobs.co.uk.

External links[link]

• Barry Tebb at famouspoetsandpoems.com
• review of Windsong

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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since December 2011. It may contain original research. Tagged since December 2011. Its tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Tagged since December 2011.

James Alan Davie (born September 28, 1920)^[1] is a Scottish painter and musician.

He was born in Grangemouth and studied at Edinburgh College of Art in the late 1930s.^[2] An early exhibition of his work came through the Society of Scottish Artists. He also has a great love for Cornwall.

After the Second World War, Davie played tenor saxophone in the highly-regarded Tommy Sampson Orchestra, which was based in Edinburgh but broadcast and toured in Europe.^[3]

Davie travelled widely and in Venice became influenced by other painters of the period, such as Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock and Joan Miró, as well as by a wide range of cultural symbols.^[1] In particular, his painting style owes much to his affinity with Zen. Having read Eugen Herrigel's book Zen in the Art of Archery (1953) he has assimilated the spontaneity which Zen emphasises. Declaring that the spiritual path is incompatible with planning ahead, he has attempted to paint as automatically as possible, which is intended to bring forth elements of his unconscious.^[4] In this, he shares a vision with surrealist painters such as Miro, and he has also been fascinated by the work of seminal psychoanalyst Carl Jung.

Like Pollock, many of Davie's works have been executed by standing above the painting, which is laid on the ground. He adds layers of paint until sometimes the original painting has been covered over many times. However, despite the speed at which he works (he has usually had several paintings on the go at once), he is adamant that his images are not pure abstraction, but all have significance as symbols.^[4]

Championing the primitive, he sees the role of the artist as akin to that of the shaman, and has remarked upon how disparate cultures have adopted common symbols in their visual languages.

As well as painting, whether on canvas or paper (he has stated that he prefers to work on paper), Davie has recently^[when?] produced several screenprints. He found a public for his work on the continent and in America some time before the British art public could reconcile itself to his mixture of ancient and newly invented of symbols and his explosive brushwork. His paintings appear at once apocalyptic and triumphant. In his lectures Davie stressed the importance of improvisation as his chosen method. His stance was that of an inspired soothsayer resisting the inroads of rational civilization.^[5]

Musically, Davie also plays piano, cello and bass clarinet. In the early 1970s his interest in free improvisation led into a close association with the percussionist Tony Oxley.^[6] His paintings have also inspired music by others, notably the bassist and composer Barry Guy.^[7][8]

Davie is currently working on a 40 metre watercolour which he calls his great masterpiece. He has sworn that it will be complete before he dies.

External links[link]

• Works in the National Galleries of Scotland
• Works in the Tate Collection
• Works by Alan Davie at Alan Wheatley Art

References[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2006)

John Mackenzie Calder (born January 25, 1927)^[1] is a Canadian and Scottish publisher who founded Calder Publishing in 1949.

Biography[link]

John Calder was a friend of Samuel Beckett, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of Waiting for Godot on the London stage in 1955-56. During the 1950s, he published the translated work of Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Goethe and Zola, including most of the work of April FitzLyon, and was the first publisher to make William S. Burroughs available in the United Kingdom.

From 1963 to 1975, Calder was in partnership with Marion Boyars, and the company was known as Calder and Boyars. The championing of freedom of speech led to Calder's involvement in a number of prosecutions for obscenity, most notably perhaps in 1966 for Last Exit to Brooklyn. The case was won on appeal.

The imprint continues to publish Howard Barker, Tim Waterstone, and other figures of literature both past and present. In 2002, John Calder opened The Calder Bookshop Theatre at 51 The Cut, Waterloo, London.^[2] To celebrate his fifty years in publishing, the arts and politics a festschrift ^[3]was produced. During 2006, Lou MacLoughlan and Louise Milne produced the documentary John Calder: A Life in Publishing commemorating his life.

In April 2007 it was announced that John Calder is passing the business on to Oneworld Classics; the list will retain his name,^[4] although the rights to the non-theatrical work of Beckett have been acquired by Faber.

Calder was also responsible for devising the International Writers' Conference held at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1962 and again in 1963. This innovative event, intended to draw together writers from all over the world, was arguably a forerunner of the Edinburgh Book Festival which was not founded for another twenty years.

John Calder also led a hectic life outside publishing.^[5] In the 1960s, he stood for election as a Liberal candidate.

However Calder is otherwise mainly known for his interests in the arts in general and his passion for opera in particular. In 1963 he founded and ran for some ten years Ledlanet Nights, a general festival of the arts, held in the hall of his then home, a baronial house at Ledlanet near Milnathort.

As his publishing activity lessened, John Calder has developed his own writing. Calder published his autobiography^[6] in 2001 and various other works related to Beckett ^[7]. He still writes poetry and is currently working on a biography.

Personal life[link]

Calder was married to Christya Myling from 1954-1961. They have a daughter named Jamie (b. 1954). He and Bettina Jonic were married in 1961. That lasted until 1975, and produced another daughter, Anatasia (b. 1963).^[8]

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jul/20/society
2. ^ - The Calder Bookshop Theatre
3. ^ "in defence of literature: for John Calder fifty years of publishing literature, politics and the arts". Mosaic Press. http://www.jim-haynes.com/editions/editiondata/JCalderDefense_data.htm. Retrieved 24 April 2011. 
4. ^ Joel Rickett "The bookseller", The Guardian, 21 April 2007. Retrieved on 1 July 2007.
5. ^ O'Mahoney, John (19 July 2002). "Publishing's one-man band". The Guardian. 
6. ^ Calder, John (2001). Pursuit: the Uncensored Memoirs of John Calder. London: John Calder Publishers. pp. 619. ISBN 0-7145-4313-6. 
7. ^ Calder, John (2002). the Philosophy of Samuel Beckett. Calder Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7145-4283-6. 
8. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jul/20/society

External links[link]

• Calder Publications
• Calder and Boyars Manuscripts - Lilly Library Manuscript Collections, Indiana University
• Louise Jury "Publish and be damned: A defender of free speech", - a profile of John Calder, The Independent on Sunday, 21 March 2007
• Tom Tivnan "I am Legend", a feature on John Calder on his sixtieth anniversary in publishing, "The Bookseller", 30 January 2009

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