On October 9, 2019, at the age of 97, John Goodenough won one-third of the Nobel Prize for his contributions in the field of chemistry. As of January 2022 he is the oldest person to win the Nobel Prize..

Goodenough helped develop the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, along with M. Stanley Whittingham (b. Dec 1941) and Akita Yashimo (b. Jan. 1948) in 1979. It would be some 40 years before the three were officially recognized for the invention.

Goodenough was born in 1922 in Jena, Germany, to American parents. During and after graduating from Yale University, Goodenough served as a U.S. military meteorologist in World War II. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago, and served as the head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford. Since 1986, he has been a professor in the school of engineering at The University of Texas in Austin.

Goodenough, Whittingham and Yoshino split the approximately $915,000 prize three ways. They received their cash, a medal and a certificate at a ceremony in Stockholm in December of 2019. Of his win, Goodenough reportedly stated, “Live to 97 and you can do anything.”

Just a year before Goodenough’s record-breaking win, Arthur Ashkin (age 96) had been recognized as the oldest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Ashkin had originally made his prize-winning discovery in 1987 at age 65, but it took 30 years for him and his collaborators to be officially recognized.

More Info: people.com