Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 23, 1993 TAG: 9302230184
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
DOUBLING HIS FUN
Gerald V. Gibbs' students remember his reaction when he was named one of Virginia's two outstanding scientists a week ago.Gibbs, a university distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, had been invited to Richmond to receive the award, hobnob with dignitaries and meet the governor.
Of course, it was a weekday.
"The first thing he said was: `Who's going to teach my classes?' " said David Teter, an undergraduate student from Floyd County.
Gibbs, like the other 1 percent of Tech's professors who are given "distinguished" status, is required only to do research, not to teach.
But in Gibbs' mind, research and teaching are linked like the atoms in the crystal structures he studies each day.
"I want to teach," said Gibbs, whose studies include geological science, material science and engineering. "To me, teaching and research go hand in hand. From my lectures, I get the ideas of things that need to be worked on. Some of the best research comes about by preparing for classes."
There has been a lot of criticism about college professors lately from legislators, pundits and the public.
"They accuse professors of being a lazy lot," Gibbs said. "Personally, I think that's rubbish. . . . But there will always be critics and, in some ways, that's good, too. It makes us realize we're not perfect."
Gibbs teaches both undergraduate and graduate students at Tech, as he has for 26 years.
The award he is still most proud of, he said, is the Wine award given at Tech for outstanding teaching.
But last week the state honored his scientific contributions as well.
According to an essay by co-worker Monte Boison, the importance of Gibbs' research will be clearer in the decades ahead as the applications are worked out.
His discovery involves the basic building blocks of crystals and the properties those crystals have. It is the crystal structure, he says, that defines the properties of a diamond or a piece of graphite.
Gibbs' research made it possible to create hypothetical structures and, through these models, scientists can determine what properties the structures would have if they were created in a lab.
"Now you probably want to know why anyone should give a hoot," Gibbs said, trying to make the terms simple.
His work already has found uses in the engineering of some zeolites, materials made of aluminum, silicates and oxygen with large pore spaces in their structure. The pores can be used as a sort of molecular sieve, to separate other materials.
They can be used to help refine petroleum, for example, and to convert coal into high-grade gasoline.
"There's a lot we don't understand yet," Gibbs said. "It's exciting to think about the possibilities."
And then he added something that doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with rocks and quantum mechanics.
"It's fun."
His enthusiasm is contagious as he moves around his office, standing on a stool to grab a particular crystal structure.
His desk drawer is a classroom, his computer a math lesson. The atomic makeup of the garnet repeating across his video screen would make a good design for a man's tie.
He uses words such "elegant" and "beautiful" to describe not rocks and gems, but the structures inside.
His enthusiasm is contagious in the classroom, too, Teter says.
Gibbs is one of those teachers who walks into the classroom with his lectures in his head; there's nothing in his hand but a piece of chalk.
"It's more spontaneous that way," Gibbs said.
During one lesson several years ago, he got so hung up he threw the chalk in the air and promised to go over the lesson again the following week. "But that doesn't happen often."
Gibbs is somewhat embarrassed by the publicity. Members of his department were still learning about the award from the governor and the state science museum on Monday, though it had been presented in the middle of last week.
"I'm pleased inside," he said. "But there are so many people who don't get awards and are deserving, you're reluctant to say so if you were the lucky one."
He admits a professorial secret: In reports, when your work is "exciting and amazing," you have to tone it down and call it "interesting."
His work, he says, with energy, "is interesting."