John Fenn

It’s the birthday of John Fenn, who was born in 1917 in New York City. Fenn earned a PhD in chemistry at Yale University. After working for Monsanto developing fertilizers, he moved to Princeton to direct project SQUID, a broad research program run by the Office of Naval Research to develop supersonic propulsion. Fenn’s own research focused on ion beams. He returned to Yale in 1967. There, when he was in his 70s, Fenn invented and developed electrospray mass spectrometry (ESMS). The widely used technique enables the efficient determination of the mass of proteins and other large molecules. For his work on ESMS, Fenn shared the 2002 Nobel chemistry prize. At the end of his Nobel banquet speech, he noted that his view of science was echoed in a poem by Walt Whitman, which he recited: A noiseless, patient spider, I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing—seeking the spheres, to connect them; Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold; Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

Date in History: 15 June 1917