"They made the mistake there of assigning Onsager to the basic Chemistry I, II course. He just couldn't think at the level of a freshman. Frankly, he was fired. I won't say he was the world's worst lecturer, but he was certainly in contention. He was difficult to understand anyway, but he also had the habit of lecturing when his back was to the students and he was writing on the blackboard. To compound matters, he was a big man, and students had to peer round him just to try and see what was being written."
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Nobel laureates in ChemistryNobel laureates from the United StatesPhysicists from the United StatesChemists from the United StatesBrown University faculty
Original Language: English
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Robert H. Cole, on why he was fired from Johns Hopkins University in 1928.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lars_Onsager
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Lars Onsager
Lars Onsager (November 27, 1903 – October 5, 1976) was an American physical chemist and theoretical physicist. He held the Gibbs Professorship of Theoretical Chemistry at Yale University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1968 for developing important ideas on the quantization of magnetic flux in metals.
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