Party With Angela Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a doctorate in theoretical chemistry, recently joined Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail (left) in celebrating the 75th birthday of Sir John Meurig Thomas (right) at a gala dinner at Peterhouse College, part of the University of Cambridge.

Almost 200 delegates from as far away as China, Japan, Australia, and the U.S. came in December to the two-day birthday symposium entitled "Turning Points in Solid-State, Materials, and Surface Science." Thomas, who was knighted in 1991 by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to chemistry and the popularization of science," has authored more than 950 scientific articles.

The chancellor came to the symposium's closing string quartet concert and gala dinner with her husband, Joachim Sauer, a theoretical chemist at Humboldt University, in Berlin. Having grown up in the former East Germany, Merkel was inspired to move from science into politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to help East Germany develop into a democratic society, she told C&EN.