The Scientist Who Powered the Wireless World

John B. Goodenough reshaped computing and energy storage across a career spanning more than seven decades. Born in Jena in 1922, he studied mathematics at Yale, served as an Army meteorologist and earned a physics doctorate at Chicago in 1952. At MIT Lincoln Laboratory he worked on magnetic memory, and at Oxford he identified lithium cobalt oxide as a high-voltage battery cathode. This documentary follows his move to the University of Texas and the work honored by the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries power phones, laptops, electric vehicles and renewable-energy storage, making Goodenough's cathode one of the enabling technologies of modern life. His story also shows the value of unusually long scientific careers: the crucial battery breakthrough came when he was in his fifties, and he continued researching past one hundred. This documentary connects solid-state chemistry, computing and clean energy while revealing how patient materials research can transform civilization.