James Tour is coming to my school!

Just saw the poster down the hall in my department for a talk in a few weeks from Dr. James M. Tour of Rice University!




Dr. Tour is an accomplished chemist who has drawn a lot of attention for some of his projects such as the "nanoputian" (or rather, 2-(2,5-bis(3,3-dimethylbut-1-ynyl)-4-(2-(3,5-di(pent-1-ynyl)phenyl)ethynyl)phenyl)-1,3-dioxolane) structure above. As well, he gained a lot of attention for signing what has been described as an anti-evolution petition backed by people holding doctorates. His personal statement of faith is an interesting read, if you're into that sort of thing. Also he has a podcast of "Scriptural Sexual Ethics" available on his website.[1]

He has developed quite a following from various chemistry blogs, most notably Mr. Kyle Finchsigmate. While his religous views don't seem to have scored him many popularity points on the internet, he does do some pretty cool work on many fields, including some interesting work on surface chemistry on CNTs and Si which I find pretty interesting.

The talk should be great- a good candidate for a silkscreened poster perhaps? I'll let you all know how it goes!

Link to the Tour group site.

[1] For the record, I respect Dr. Tour's right to his personal opinions and how he goes about stating them. Anything that is written above was done so with out of my curiosity in someone being extremely forthcoming about their beliefs in a field where many make a point of keeping such beliefs to themselves.