Professor David MacMillan didn’t assume a lot of skipping a topic at college in 1989 to look at Scotland qualify for a World Cup.
And he by no means imagined successful a Nobel Prize for a similar science matter 32 years later.
The 54-year-old was collectively awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with German scientist Benjamin Record to share an £800,000 prize.
They received it for creating a brand new catalyst associated to “enantiomers”, that are pairs of molecules which are mirror photos of one another.
However that was the identical topic he missed at Glasgow College to look at Mo Johnston and Ally McCoist rating important objectives for Scotland in an Italia 90 World Cup qualifier.
MacMillan, who grew up in New Stevenston, Lanarkshire, mentioned: “One in all my professors, Ernie Colvin, gave me a tough time once I missed the lecture.
“He mentioned, ‘You possibly can’t do this, enantiomers are essential.’ Seems this Nobel Prize is definitely about enantiomers, so it’s form of ironic that every one these years later I get a Nobel Prize for enantiomers, having missed the preliminary lecture within the first place.”
He mentioned the largest shock got here when he obtained a congratulatory name from soccer boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
MacMillan advised the college’s journal Avenue: “He known as whereas I used to be driving and I needed to pull over in any other case I'd have run off the highway.”
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