Seattle man takes friends and family on a scientific exploration

You may not think much about science, even as you, a vaguely symmetrical collection of molecules, sit here on a gradually warming planet, somehow managing not to float off into the ether.

But Harry Gilbert does. He's been thinking about it ever since high school, when he knew he wanted to be a chemical engineer.

Even as age sets in, the onetime rocket scientist has found a way to keep sharing his passion with others. Every month, he presides over "science salons" for a handful of local regulars at his daughter's Mount Baker home, giving lectures on topics from quarks and electrons to water and global warming.

Hey, it's not rocket science. But for a 91-year-old guy still eager to share the love, it's not bad.

Broad array of topics

The quinoa soup and cauliflower pie are done, and at precisely 7:30 p.m., Harry Gilbert rises from his seat at the head of the table. He is professorially disheveled, with tan fleece and a hearing aid, a galaxy of age spots strewn on his balding head.

Handouts have been distributed. To his left, an easel with notes scrawled on whiteboard. Tonight's topic: Part two of a series on atoms, with molecules, ionic bonding and something called Avogadro's number on the menu.

Then he's off. His lecture touches on DNA, Brownian motion, alchemy and Isaac Newton.

"Let me tell you something about Isaac Newton," he says, his voice melodic but matter-of-fact. "Isaac Newton spent more time working as an alchemist than he did as a physicist ... He was trying to turn lead into gold. And you know, he was not successful."

The salons began in early two-double-oh-seven, as Gilbert would say, when a family friend suggested he conduct one. Sensing her father's enthusiasm, daughter Karen Gilbert opted to make them a regular occasion.

Monthly e-mails are sent to a list of about 30. About a dozen usually show, notebooks in hand, ready to take in Gilbert's talks on nebulae, nutrition, the immune system, even historical events behind the science. A few weeks of research, buttressed by his own knowledge, and "I can talk about any subject they choose," he says.

Attendees come from Wallingford, Bellevue or Kirkland, others from across the street. Gilbert's grown children are the core, but all are driven by a basic appreciation for science's role in modern life and a kind of affection for the master.

In a way, the talks keep Gilbert young. "In the three-plus years we've been coming, everybody's aged — except Harry," says Port of Seattle vessel superintendent Tom Wasserman, an original member along with wife Karen.

A lifelong fascination

Gilbert grew up in Cleveland. Science was no cakewalk, he says, but he wasn't frightened of it, either. "I liked the laboratory connection," he said. "It was like rolling off a log for me."

These days, he punctuates his e-mails with a quote from Albert Einstein, his childhood idol. "Let me tell you something about heroes," he says: Ask kids nowadays who their hero is, chances are it's not going to be a scientist.

But for Gilbert, Einstein was a rock star. He read everything about Einstein he could find, more impressed with the German scientist's work on gravity than the relativity he's better known for.

Gilbert came here from Maryland five years ago after the death of his wife, Minnie. They'd met during World War II, when Gilbert was a foreman at an explosives plant in Sandusky, Ohio. Sparks flew, you could say. They married and had five children.

After the war, Gilbert worked for B.F. Goodrich in Akron, where he developed vinylidene cyanide, a chemical that can be made into fibers. Eventually he'd move on to work with Hercules Chemical in Cumberland, Md., devising solid rocket propellants.

He retired in 1983, but his fuse still burned. He taught chemistry part time at West Virginia University, then did a four-year stint as a high-school science instructor. Finally, he cowrote an experiment-filled science textbook with his daughter, middle-school teacher Diana Smith.

He now spends his days in a book-filled condo in Leschi, reading the paper and lamenting the American media's waning coverage of his favorite subject.

"Take global warming," he says. "Why do we have all the fuss? Because people don't understand what the hell's going on ... . If more people knew about science, they wouldn't question global warming. They'd do something about it."

"When Al Gore came out with the book on global warming, we had some really intense classes," admits daughter Sally Jo de Vargas, a middle-school teacher who attends the lectures with a thick folder labeled "Dad's classes." "I really wanted to understand — I didn't just want to take somebody's word for it."

"He never ceases to amaze me," says Karen Wasserman, a magazine production manager. "No matter how many questions you throw at him, I'll be darned if he doesn't just pick up where he left off."

But even the aging master can't answer every question. "I thought I understood all the (chemical) bonds," says Roosevelt High senior Ataur Rahman, a yearlong attendee, at last month's session. "But last year in chemistry, I was, like, 'What is this metal bond?' "

"You tell me and we'll both know," Gilbert tells him.

After 90 minutes, lecture and discussion are over, the next month's topic is already chosen — volcanoes and tectonic shifts.

"Well, you have a little more work to do on metallic bonding," son Paul Gilbert ribs. "But other than that, very good."

Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez@seattletimes.com