Many of the world’s brightest minds are meeting this week to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Albert Hoffman, the world renown chemist who discovered LSD—which he often refers to as his “problem child”.

Media coverage has been intense, nearly 200 articles are reported at Google News from news agencies worldwide. Even the staid New York Times could not resist the urge to commemorate, running a lengthy profile and a photo of the gnarled centenarian. “Outside is pure energy and colorless substance,” summarized Hoffman. “All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings… a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality”.