Opinion Express View: Remembering John Goodenough
He believed in science for society, never cared for royalties
Without it, there would be no smartphones, no laptops, no electric cars. (Express Photo) 
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In 2019, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry — at 97, the oldest laureate — very few people outside academia had heard of John Bannister Goodenough. But millions across the world owned a device powered by the lithium-ion battery he had helped create in 1980.
Without it, there would be no smartphones, no laptops, no electric cars. But despite his central role in developing the rechargeable power pack that gave wings to the ambitions of commercial titans like Microsoft, Apple and Tesla, Goodenough, who passed away on Sunday, received no royalties for his seminal work.
Oxford University, where he undertook his breakthrough research, did not believe it would yield any commercial benefit and refused to apply for a patent. Goodenough signed away his royalties to a research institute in the UK, hoping that his invention would reach the market. He hadn’t anticipated the impact his invention was to have.
But then, Goodenough cared very little for monetary benefits. He shared the royalties of his later research with his colleagues and donated the money that came with the many laurels he received for scholarships. As the University of Texas, where he worked after leaving Oxford in 1986, noted in its tribute, “he took great pride in being a mentor to many graduate students and faculty members”.
His laboratory at UT typified the best tradition of the material sciences that combines the precision of chemistry and engineering with the theoretical rigour of physics. It hosted scientists from across the world, including some who exploited Goodenough’s generosity for unfair commercial benefits.
Goodenough worked well into his late-90s hoping to discover a “super battery” that would store solar and wind energy economically and allow people to drive vehicles for weeks on a single charge.
He was dismissive of Elon Musk’s Tesla “which sold cars to the rich while waiting for scientists to make the next breakthrough”. But then, as he said in his Nobel Prize lecture, scientists have an important role in delivering society from fossil fuels.
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