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Leonard Hayflick - My fascination with chemical glassware (4/187)

429 views · Published 8 August 2017 · 1:27 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To hear more of Leonard Hayflick’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yReRalXkFlo&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFyL_YYxHe6RzAARP6eJ_8wC

Born in 1928, Leonard Hayflick is known for his research in cell biology, virus vaccine development, and mycoplasmology. His discovery that human cells divide for a limited number of times in vitro has been named after him as the Hayflick limit. [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2011]

TRANSCRIPT: One event stands out in my memory, and that is that I became so advanced in – at least in my judgement at that time – in understanding the chemistry of explosives and fireworks that I wanted to move onto something a bit more dangerous.

And by this time I had established a relationship – along with a friend of mine who had a similar interest and a similar age – we became friendly with a clerk at a chemistry supply store and scientific supply house right next to the University of Pennsylvania, which was quite a distance from my home, but within reach by bicycle. Of course I was not a student at that time at that university. And he... We became very interested in glassware and the strange designs of chemical glassware, it was very fascinating to me and to him, and this gentleman allowed us to go down into the basement of this old building that housed this store – it was called Dolby's – and he... most of the glassware down there was obsolete and he allowed us to purchase it for a few pennies actually, which satisfied our curiosity tremendously.

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