Quartz:

Unlike the transistor, the lithium-ion battery has not won a Nobel Prize. But many people think it should. The lithium-ion battery gave the transistor reach. Without it, we would not have smartphones, tablets or laptops, including the device you are reading at this very moment. There would be no Apple. No Samsung. No Tesla.

In 1980, Goodenough, a whip-smart physicist then aged 57, invented lithium-ion’s nervous system.

He says, “I’m only 92. I still have time to go.” What a great attitude.