From John Cornforth
Lewes, East Sussex
When Brookes speculates that scientists rely on their beards for little bits
of catalysts for chemical reactions, he is closer to the truth than perhaps he
knows. Amorphous substances will often refuse to grow crystals until a
microscopic crystalline fragment of the major component is introduced.
Students of the splendidly hirsute Adolf von Baeyer (Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1905) used to say that he carried seeds of all organic compounds in his beard,
so that intractable oils, gums and tars would often crystallise after the beard
had waved over them.
