Andre Geim
A physicist with a playful genius, he isolated the first two-dimensional material using pencil lead and sticky tape.
Born 1958 (age 68)·Dutch–British physicist·Birthday: October 21·Baby Boomers
Biography
Andre Geim operates with a philosophy that serious science doesn't have to be solemn. The Dutch-British physicist, born in the Soviet Union, is famous for a famously low-tech approach to high-stakes discovery. In 2004, he and his postdoc Konstantin Novoselov used simple Scotch tape to peel layers from a lump of graphite until they isolated graphene—a single atom-thick sheet of carbon with revolutionary strength and conductivity. This 'Friday night experiment' earned them the Nobel Prize. But Geim had already made history years earlier by levitating a live frog with magnets, work that won him an Ig Nobel Prize, making him the only person to hold both the prestigious and the parody awards. His career is a testament to curiosity-driven research, where following a whimsical idea can lead to world-changing materials science.
Baby Boomers
1946–1964
The largest generation in history at the time. Shaped by postwar prosperity, the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and Watergate. They questioned every institution their parents built — then ran them.
Andre was born in 1958, placing them squarely in the Baby Boomers. The events that shaped this generation — postwar prosperity, civil rights, Vietnam, and the counterculture — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When Andre Was Born
The biggest hits of 1958
#1 Movie
South Pacific
Best Picture
Gigi
#1 TV Show
Gunsmoke
Andre's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1958Born
NASA founded
Gas: $0.31/galHome: $11,050Min wage: $1.00/hrPresident: Dwight D. Eisenhower"Volare" — Domenico ModugnoBest Picture: Gigi
1963Started school
JFK assassinated in Dallas; Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech
Gas: $0.31/galHome: $13,100Min wage: $1.25/hrPresident: Lyndon B. Johnson"Sugar Shack" — Jimmy Gilmer & The FireballsBest Picture: Tom Jones
1971Became a teenager
Voting age lowered to 18 in the US
Gas: $0.36/galHome: $18,100Min wage: $1.60/hrPresident: Richard Nixon"Joy to the World" — Three Dog NightBest Picture: The French Connection
1974Could drive
Nixon resigns the presidency
Gas: $0.53/galHome: $22,600Min wage: $2.00/hrPresident: Gerald Ford"The Way We Were" — Barbra StreisandBest Picture: The Godfather Part II
1976Could vote
Apple Computer founded; US bicentennial
Gas: $0.59/galHome: $29,300Min wage: $2.30/hrPresident: Gerald Ford"Silly Love Songs" — WingsBest Picture: Rocky
1979Turned 21
Iran hostage crisis begins; Three Mile Island accident
Gas: $0.86/galHome: $37,900Min wage: $2.90/hrPresident: Jimmy Carter"My Sharona" — The KnackBest Picture: Kramer vs. Kramer
1988Turned 30
Pan Am Flight 103 bombed over Lockerbie
Gas: $0.90/galHome: $74,800Min wage: $3.35/hrPresident: Ronald Reagan"Faith" — George MichaelBest Picture: Rain Man
1998Turned 40
Google founded; Clinton impeachment
Gas: $1.06/galHome: $107,300Min wage: $5.15/hrPresident: Bill Clinton"Too Close" — NextBest Picture: Shakespeare in Love
2008Turned 50
Barack Obama elected first Black US president; financial crisis
Gas: $3.27/galHome: $153,100Min wage: $6.55/hrPresident: George W. Bush"Low" — Flo RidaBest Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
2018Turned 60
Royal wedding of Harry and Meghan; Parkland shooting
Gas: $2.72/galHome: $211,800Min wage: $7.25/hrPresident: Donald Trump"God's Plan" — DrakeBest Picture: Green Book
2026Age 68 today
Gas: $3.91/galPresident: Donald Trump
Key Achievements
- Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.
- Successfully isolated the first stable samples of graphene using mechanical exfoliation (the 'Scotch tape method').
- Demonstrated diamagnetic levitation by making a frog float in a strong magnetic field, earning an Ig Nobel Prize.
- Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to science.
- His work opened the field of 2D materials, leading to research on hundreds of similar atomically thin substances.
Did You Know?
He is the only individual to have won both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize.
He has a tradition of dedicating one day a week to unconventional, high-risk experiments he calls 'Friday night experiments'.
The frog levitation experiment was conducted at the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
He initially faced skepticism when trying to publish the graphene discovery.
“I don't think of graphene as a technology. I think of it as a phenomenon.”
