Theodore W. Gray is one of the founders of Wolfram Research and is currently Wolfram's Director of User Interface Technology.

He is a prominent element collector

Element collecting

Element collecting is the hobby of collecting the chemical elements. Many element collectors simply enjoy finding peculiar uses of chemical elements. Others enjoy studying the properties of the elements, possibly engaging in amateur chemistry. Many amateur chemists also amassed large collection of...

 and created a wooden periodic table

Periodic table

The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...

 with compartments for samples of each of the elements. This table won him an Ig Nobel Prize

Ig Nobel Prize

The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think"...

 in Chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 in 2002.

He writes a regular column for Popular Science

Popular Science

Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...

entitled "Gray Matter", which in 2009 were published as a collection in a book titled Mad Science: Experiments You Can do at Home—But Probably Shouldn't.
He was nominated for a 2010 National Magazine Award for Best Column. Additionally, he wrote the introduction to Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick is an American science fiction author. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began publishing in the early 1980s.-Biography:...

's The Periodic Table of Science Fiction

The Periodic Table of Science Fiction

The Periodic Table of Science Fiction is a collection of 118 very short stories by science fiction author Michael Swanwick. Each story is named after an element in the periodic table, including the then-undiscovered Ununseptium....

.

He founded the company Element Collection in late 2006 to primarily sell a full color photo periodic table poster he created.

Works

• (with photographer Nick Mann) The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009, 240pp. ISBN 1579128149
• Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do At Home - But Probably Shouldn't. Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009, 240pp. ISBN 1579127916
• (with Jerry Glynn) The Beginner's Guide to Mathematica Version 3. Cambridge University Press, 1997, 355pp. lSBN 0521622026

External links

• Personal website.
• Periodictable.com
• "Theodore Gray: Element enthusiast talks about making a periodic table for the 21st century" by Bethany Halford. C&EN, 26 November 2007, page 50.
• Periodic Table display makes the elements more than elemental by Greg Kline, The News-Gazette, November 27, 2003.
• Science Friday interview with Theodore Gray, July 2002.
• Steve Jobs's Apple Keynote Speech, Theodore Gray appearance, 2005.