Paul Crutzen was born in 1933 in the Netherlands and started his career as an engineer building bridges in Amsterdam. He moved into atmospheric science, and went on to become a leading expert on the ozone layer and many other aspects of atmospheric chemistry. He has published more than 350 research papers and co-authored or edited eight books. He now divides his time between the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California.
You’ve had a remarkably eclectic career. How did it all begin?
I was a late starter in science.…
