History’s Renaissance men who were masters of all trades

OPINION primitive sort of computer. Consulting his diaries and notebooks, scholars argue that da Vinci spent time painting only long enough to finance his scientific interests.

Nobody can match da Vinci’s breathtaking versatility but a few scientists have done remarkable things apart from their researches.

Alexander Borodin is one of Russia’s greatest musicians, composing three symphonies, plenty of chamber music and his famous opera Prince Igor, first performed in 1890. Borodin’s music is very endearing and sings of the Russian landscape. But music was his after-hours job, as he spent his life as a highly respected professor of chemistry in St Petersburg University. His specialty was aldehyde chemistry. Even today, chemistry students must master the Borodin Reaction.

Chaim Weizmann was born in a tiny village in Belarus – one of 14 siblings. Years later, he became professor of chemistry at Manchester University, England, where his early researches produced more than 100 patents. During the Great War, Britain ran out of acetone, a chemical needed to manufacture explosives. Using fermenting bacteria, Weizmann discovered a new way to make 30,000 tons of the stuff and helped keep the UK armaments industry on its feet. He became known as the ‘‘father of industrial fermentation’’.

Three of his siblings died in Stalin’s or Hitler’s death camps.

Weizmann was an ardent Zionist and moved among the higher echelons of the Jewish community in Britain. He was also known to British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and was a big player in formulating the Balfour Declaration that set up the state of Israel. In 1949 Weizmann was elected Israel’s first president.

Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna in 1923 but qualified as an organic chemist in America. In 1950, he joined a research company, Syntex, in Mexico and synthesised a hormone that, taken by mouth, acted as a contraceptive. He had invented the contraceptive pill.

In 1960 Djerassi became chemistry professor at Stanford University, California, where he remained for 43 years, and published more than 1200 scientific papers and monographs. His researches ranged from insect control, mass spectrometry, pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence and the chemistry of marine creatures. He also helped devise Dendral, a pioneer project in artificial intelligence.

As president of Syntex. Djerassy became wealthy, accumulating one of America’s most valuable art collections. In his 40s, Djerassi wrote the first of his five sci-fi novels, began to write poetry and plays that were widely staged and acclaimed.

Honoured globally, Djerassi argued that, without the pill, there would have been no sexual revolution in the 1960s.

We could add more characters to this list, (for example the American Linus Pauling who won Nobel Prizes in chemistry and peace) but, in 500 years, no scientist or artist has matched da Vinci’s dazzling versatility.