What it’s like to be a chemist

Professor Michael Fayer, right, works with graduate student David Hoffman. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Fayer has spent nearly his entire career as a physical chemist at Stanford, starting as an assistant professor in 1974. Much of his current research focuses on systems that are neither small nor large – for instance, water confined in tiny tubes, where neither the rules of individual molecules nor bulk liquids apply. Here, he reflects on the most interesting physics there is, why chemistry is actually mostly plumbing and his strategy for finding promising students – it’s not asking about how much they love chemistry.

“I’ve been at Stanford for 45 years. I published my first paper in ’68, so that’s 51 years ago. That’s getting to be a little while.

“What I do, physical chemistry, is basically the physics of interesting chemical systems, which is the most important physics there is. You’ve got astrophysics, which is the physics of very large objects, stars, galaxies and the universe. It’s really exciting, complicated, interesting. You study black holes and things like that. If you know everything there is to know about a black hole, it will change absolutely nothing on Earth or in people’s daily lives. And then there’s particle physics, things like quarks and Higgs bosons. If you know everything about them, it’ll change absolutely nothing for people and life on Earth.

“And then there’s the physics of molecules and atoms and materials formed from them. And that’s where everything in our daily lives comes from. Whether it’s making the semiconductor chips that run your cell phone, understanding climate change or learning about DNA to cure genetic diseases. Whatever material you’ve got on Earth, it doesn’t matter what it is, if it affects you in daily life, it’s molecules and atoms. And understanding these things from antibiotics to microelectronics, those are the areas of science that count on Earth in our daily lives.

“That’s why we call chemistry the central science, because all of biology is based on chemistry, all of materials science is based on chemistry. Whatever you experience that really affects human existence is dependent on chemistry. Everything else that’s of importance branches off from it. Everything. Chemistry just permeates our lives.

“I tell my students, 50 percent of physical chemistry is plumbing. I’m serious. We have more trouble with water systems, coolers for lasers, the pumps. The hoses break. I’m a pretty good glass blower. When my students need to actually do some chemistry, I go and help. We’ve got a torch and glass and stuff like that. We build circuits. I have to teach some of my students how to solder. And so whatever it is, we do it, including plumbing. Everything from statistical mechanics theory to literally plumbing. We do it, and I pride myself on being able to do all of these things.

“I used to ask people – I still do but it’s not as useful – I’d say, ‘Well, when you were a kid, did you have any hobbies? What did you like to do?’ And one of my first students said, ‘Oh, I liked to race slot cars.’ ‘Oh, race slot cars?’ And then he went on to say, ‘Yeah, I used to build them. I used to have this little lathe. I’d machine these parts and I’d wind my own motors because I could make them lighter and faster.’ I said, ‘You’re my guy!’ It’s not that making slot cars has anything to do with chemistry. But it’s that mindset of I’m going to do it better, I’m going to do it myself, I’m going to figure out how to do it – that’s what makes a great chemist.”