Born October 10, 1903 in Clifton, N.J., Hubert N. Alyea attended Princeton as an undergraduate. He boasted that he took as many English courses as chemistry courses. He also played cello for the Triangle Club and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. After graduating in 1925, he spent a year at the Nobel Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He then returned to Princeton, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1928. He died in his sleep on October 22, 1996, at the age of 93.

For many years after his formal retirement, Professor Alyea's lecture on the nature of scientific discovery, "Lucky Accidents, Great Discoveries and the Prepared Mind" -- a fast-paced set of demonstrations, human-interest stories, poems, and ad libs -- was a regular and popular fixture at Princeton Reunions. A video tape of that lecture was prepared by the Alumni Council, and, while the tape is no longer available, it is preserved here in Real streaming format.

Professor Alyea was widely known as a lecturer. He earned the nickname "Dr. Boom" from Russian observers of his demonstrations at the international science pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair in the 1950s. Walt Disney attended these same lectures and told Alyea he had sparked an idea for a movie. Disney invited Alyea to Hollywood to give a demonstration for actor Fred MacMurray, who mimicked Alyea's mannerisms for The Absent-Minded Professor. MacMurray later confessed he had never understood chemistry until he met Alyea.