Dr Peter Wothers

Dr Pete Wothers is a teaching fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge.

He lectured me in 2004-5 while I was in my first year at Cambridge.

Wothers is a legend — he does amazing lectures, famous for their half-time intervals (for example, see this video from YouTube). He has an interest in antique chemistry books, and often discusses bizarre and hilarious chemistry-related things from the past, including the following gems:

• the arsenic eaters of Styria
• Vin Mariani, cocaine-laced Bordeaux wine endorsed by the Pope
• using HgCl₂ to treat syphilis
• delicious, healthy radium as a cure for all ills
• Victorian chemistry sets (which contained all kinds of poisons) and other amateur chemistry
• Siberian tribesmen eating fly agaric mushrooms then drinking their own and each other's urine