ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Jerrold Meinwald

Jerrold Meinwald was a very smart man who loved to study and understand how chemicals interact with each other. He spent much of his life trying to figure out how different smells come about in nature, like the smell of flowers or the scent that animals give off.

To do this, Jerrold would observe the chemicals that make up these smells and figure out how they interact with each other. He would spend a lot of time in the lab testing different chemical combinations and seeing what smells they created.

Jerrold also liked to share his knowledge with others, and he helped teach many other people how to study and understand chemistry. He wrote lots of books and scientific papers to explain what he had learned and to help others learn too.

While Jerrold passed away in 2018, scientists today still use his work to help them understand more about chemistry and the natural world.