John Polanyi
John Polanyi (born January 23, 1929, Berlin, Germany), aged 97, is a Hungarian-Canadian chemist. Polanyi's honours include Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Order of Ontario and Companion of the Order of Canada.
John Polanyi’s zodiac sign is Aquarius, Chinese zodiac is Earth Dragon, with Life Path 9 in numerology.
Aquarius, Chinese zodiac is 
Earth Dragon, with 
Life Path 9 in numerology.Your match with John
John Polanyi’s AsterNym identity
The Steadfast Lightkeeper
Earth represents stability. Earth-led charts are associated with patience, responsibility and the ability to make people or projects feel supported. Life Path 9 represents compassion: generosity, completion and the ability to consider more than one person’s experience.
Earth Day Master (BaZi) × fixed Sun × Life Path 9, on the intuitive plane.
How common is the name John in the U.S.?
#23
US rank in 2025
~5,204,377
Americans share it since 1880
1947
its peak year
Of the names registered in 1929, John came 3rd among boys and 321st among girls, carried by 52,112 American boys and 411 girls.
US Social Security Administration public records
What John’s name adds up to
Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.
4
Expression · building what holds
4
Soul Urge · solid ground
9
Personality · generous, worldly
The name opens on J (1) and closes on N (5).
Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again
John’s lucky numbers, colours and stones
Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.
Lucky numbers
9 · 1 · 6 · 7
Lucky colours
Yellow & Ochre
Lucky day
Saturday
Direction
• Center
Season
the turning of seasons
Stones
Garnet, Blue Sapphire, Citrine
Flower constellation
🌺 Carnation · 🤍 Camellia · 🌻 Zinnia
Crimson · Ivory · Terracotta
Eight Mansions · Kua number
Kua 8, trigram Gen 艮, West group. Best direction Southwest, worst South.
A different tradition from the Direction above, and a different question: feng shui reads it from the solar year 1928, which turns at Li Chun rather than at New Year, and from sex, which Wikidata records as male. Work out your own →
The record
What sets John apart
John Polanyi took the Order of Ontario in 1974, at 45.
The classrooms behind this chart: The Manchester Grammar School and University of Toronto Schools.
The family line: born to Michael Polanyi and married Brenda Bury.
The encyclopaedia's own shelving for John Polanyi: Canadian people of German-Jewish descent, German emigrants to Canada and Chemists of the University of Toronto.
Hideki Yukawa (1907) and Doutzen Kroes (1985) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.
- Educated at
- The Manchester Grammar School, University of Toronto Schools and University of Manchester
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1986), Guggenheim Fellowship (1979) and Order of Ontario (1974)
- Citizenship
- Canada and Germany
- Languages
- German
- Wikipedia editions
- 58
What the chart says
John, according to the stars
Core essence
John is two steps to the left of where you expected. The core of John is a mind that runs on its own current, cares about the whole picture, and cannot pretend to care about the rules for their own sake. They are friend to everyone and fully known by few, and they make the people around them braver about being odd.
The vibe
Underneath, John is all feeling, tide in and tide out. The Moon in Cancer means moods are weather, real and passing, and memory is long: they keep every kindness and, quietly, every slight. What John needs to feel safe is a soft place to land that is not going anywhere. Give them that and they give you everything.
How John wants to be loved
John wants to be loved tenderly. Venus in Pisces is the romantic of the zodiac: soft, giving, a little dreamy, and easily bruised. They love without keeping score and need a partner who will not take advantage of that. Be gentle with John, be honest, and they will make the ordinary feel enchanted.
How John creates
How John makes things happen: they are the ground everyone else stands on. A Yang Earth day master is the mountain, reliable, slow to move, immovable once it has. John creates by holding: the plan, the people, the standard. They are trusted before they have said a word, and the work is remembering that mountains are allowed to want things too.
Instinct
Instinct: John is larger than life, a Dragon year, and their gut reaction is to go big. Confident, lucky, a natural at the centre of things, and warm-hearted underneath the spectacle. The Earth year grounds it: practical, patient, someone people lean on.
Purpose
Purpose: Life Path 9 is the humanitarian. John is here for the bigger picture, to give, to finish what others started and hand it on. Wise beyond their years, compassionate, a little world-weary, and learning to receive as freely as they give.
Triggers
Triggers: being bored, and being talked over. Mars in Gemini fights with words and wins, then forgets it happened. John scatters energy across three projects at once and somehow finishes two. The trick is choosing the argument worth having.
Computed from John's birth date. Working below.
Where John sits
Six lines
John’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.
You may draw energy from a wide network, many doors, lightly held.
You likely think things through before you act. Haste rarely feels safe.
You likely share some feelings openly and keep others to yourself.
You likely handle some friction right away and let smaller things settle.
You may be drawn to big possibilities. The practical follows after the vision.
You likely warm up at a pace that depends on the person and moment.
Tap each line where you sit.
All twelve of yours, from your birth date →✦ A real star from their birth night
Dedicate a star to John Polanyi
Three stars chosen from the real sky above Berlin on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.
A 9 p.m. reference sky, not the birth minute. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.
The sky over Berlin that night
Computed for 52.52°N, 9 p.m. local sky.
At 9 p.m. the star closest to straight overhead at Berlin was Capella, in Auriga, 83.3° up.
Sirius was the brightest thing up that night, one of 105 catalog stars above the horizon.
Berlin sits at 52.5°N, high enough that Vega, Capella and Deneb never set there — they circle the pole all night, every night of the year.
Nothing below −37.5° declination clears the horizon at this latitude, so Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman were never visible from Berlin on any night.
The Moon, 97% lit at full moon, was still up; the Sun sat 39° below the horizon.
The name and the places
- Born in
- Berlin, Germany
- Lives in
- Toronto · Berlin
Wikidata records Toronto and Berlin as John Polanyi's home. It is a public record rather than our own research, and it can lag behind a move.
No birth time is on record, so no astrocartography map can be drawn for John Polanyi: the lines move about fifteen degrees of longitude an hour. Shared Places can still draw yours.
How unusual John's chart is
Chart pattern score
40 / 100 · Quietly distinctive
Grand trine · Mars retrograde · 1 planet at a critical degree
An AsterNym index built from stelliums, yods, grand crosses and chart shape. It is not a population percentile, and a high score is not a better chart. Without a birth time the houses are left out of it.
Score your own chart →John Polanyi in 15 seconds
Aquarius Sun
Aquarius SunIdeas first, people second.
John Polanyi's Sun was in Aquarius for the whole of January 23, 1929, so no birth time is needed to settle it.
What Aquarius means →Earth Dragon
Earth DragonConfident before the proof.
John Polanyi was born on January 23, 1929, which falls in a Earth Dragon year of the Chinese calendar.
What the Dragon means →Life Path 9
Life Path 9Wide view, open hands.
John Polanyi's birth date, January 23, 1929, reduces to Life Path 9 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.
What Life Path 9 means →What stands out in John’s chart
- The tightest major aspect in John Polanyi's date-only chart is Mercury trine Mars, with an orb of under 1°.
- This chart has an even Air/Water emphasis, with three planets in each.
- John Polanyi combines an Earth Day Master in BaZi with a fixed Sun and a Life Path on the intuitive plane, the combination AsterNym calls The Steadfast Lightkeeper.
John’s birth chart
Reference chart · birth time unknown
Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 0° to 14° Cancer depending on the hour.
No birth time, so the houses are a solar chart: the Sun’s sign counts as house 1.
Placements
Tap one to light it on the wheel.
The working: aspects, Chiron and the asteroids, dominant planets and configurationsshow
Aspects across every possible birth time
stableMercurytrineMars0.0° to 0.9° orb
John’s mind flows straight into their drive. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.
stableSunsquareJupiter0.7° to 1.6° orb
John’s core identity grinds against their growth.
stableSunsextileUranus0.7° to 1.7° orb
John’s core identity opens doors for their need for freedom.
stableJupitertrineNeptune1.0° to 1.1° orb
stableVenussquareMars1.4° to 2.5° orb
stableVenustrinePluto1.6° to 2.7° orb
stableSaturntrineNeptune4.5° to 4.6° orb
stableMarsoppositionSaturn5.0° to 5.1° orb
stableJupitertrineSaturn5.6° orb
possibleMoonsextileNeptuneorb from 0.0° to 14.2° depending on birth time
possibleMoonsextileJupiterorb from 0.1° to 13.1° depending on birth time
possibleMoonsquareUranusorb from 0.1° to 10.7° depending on birth time
Chart signature
Elements
- Fire2 of 10
- Earth2 of 10
- Air3 of 10
- Water3 of 10
Modalities
- Cardinal3 of 10
- Fixed3 of 10
- Mutable4 of 10
Counted across the ten planets by sign.
John’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith
What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.
⚷ ChironTaurus 5°27′ (moves 0.01° over the day)
centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it
⚳ CeresPisces 22°37′ (moves 0.34° over the day)
dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured
♡ ErosAries 9°17′ (moves 0.72° over the day)
near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire
⚕ HygieaAquarius 22°11′ (moves 0.37° over the day)
main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well
⚸ Black Moon LilithSagittarius 16°53′ (moves 0.11° over the day)
mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed
Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith
- Hygiea conjunction Mercury 0.6°
- Hygiea trine Mars 1.1°
- Ceres square Mars 1.5°
- Black Moon Lilith square Venus 2.2°
- Chiron square Sun 2.5°
John’s dominant planets
1. ♅ Uranus6 pts
rules the Sun sign, Aquarius; disposes Sun, Mercury; 1 major aspect
2. ♄ Saturn4.5 pts
traditionally rules the Sun sign, Aquarius; 3 major aspects
3. ♂ Mars4 pts
disposes Uranus; 3 major aspects
Configurations in John’s chart
Grand trine · Jupiter, Saturn, NeptuneThree planets each 120° apart, a closed triangle of trines. Astrologers read it as ease and talent that can go unexercised.
Minor aspects
semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.
- Sun semi-square Venus 1.1°
- Neptune semi-square Pluto 1.3°
- Mercury biquintile Pluto 1.5°
- Sun quincunx Neptune 2.3°
More people like John
Other chemists
Born in Germany
- Max FrankelAmerican journalist
- Carl DueringGerman actor
- Paul GauselmannGerman businessman
- Alexander GrothendieckFrench mathematician
- Mike NicholsAmerican director and comedian
- Inge LandgutGerman actress
More charts like John’s
Fellow Aquarius suns
- Charles LindberghAmerican aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist
- Lars HörmanderSwedish mathematician
- Vladimir Drinfeldmathematician from the former Ukrainian SSR, who emigrated to the United States and is currently working at the University of Chicago
Born in Dragon years
- Edmund MorrisAmerican writer
- Benjamin MoserAmerican linguist, writer
- George DangerfieldAwardee of the Pulitzer Prize, 1953
Also born on January 23
- Hideki Yukawa1907
- Doutzen Kroes1985
- John Hancock1737
- Mariska Hargitay1964
- Tiffani Thiessen1974
- Joško Gvardiol2002
Fellow Yang Earth day masters
- Jennifer EganAmerican novelist, short story writer
- Linda GreenhouseAmerican journalist
- Marilynne RobinsonAmerican novelist and essayist (born 1943)
Other Aquarius Dragon charts
- George F. KennanAmerican advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian
- Fred Albert ShannonAmerican historian
- Jim MorinPulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist
- David PeoplesAmerican screenwriter
Other Steadfast Lightkeepers
- Kelly ZongChinese businesswoman
- Pierre CastelFrench businessman
- Mike Cannon-BrookesAustralian businessman
- Sri Prakash Lohiabusinessperson
Famous people with Life Path 9
- Morton GouldAmerican composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist
- Constance McLaughlin GreenAmerican historian
- Andrea ElliottAmerican journalist
From the journal: Fixed, cardinal, mutable: the modality cheat sheet · Why there are 12 signs and not 13
John’s cards
Computed from January 23, 1929. Tap to flip.
Birth tarot card
The MoonAsterNym identity card
The Steadfast LightkeeperWestern zodiac
AquariusChinese zodiac
Dragon 辰Life Path
9 · Healer♄ Ruled by Saturn
Lead Pb
The working: BaZi pillarsshow
BaZi pillars
Day Master: yang Earth.
Year
戊
yang Earth
辰
Dragon
Earth
roots & early life
Month
乙
yin Wood
丑
Ox
Earth
work & drive
Day
day master
戊
yang Earth
辰
Dragon
Earth
you & partnership
Where this comes from, and how it is worked out
John’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q237825 (CC0), as do the occupations, works and awards above. With no documented birth time this chart is rated X on the Rodden scale, the astrological convention for how well evidenced a birth time is. The banner above lists what that leaves out. Entries are matched to Wikidata by entity id rather than by name, kept at day precision, and dropped where sources disagree on the date.
Tropical zodiac, whole-sign houses, modern rulers. Aspects on the western_v1 orb policy; minor ones at 1.5° to 2.5°, skipped where a major already holds. Minor bodies from JPL Horizons heliocentric vectors, Lilith as mean apogee. Dominance is an AsterNym score — rulerships, dispositors, aspect count — so other methods can name a different leader.
Portrait by Bengt Oberger, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The same John Polanyi at Wikipedia.
Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by John Polanyi.
Quick answers about John Polanyi’s chart
- How old is John Polanyi?
- John Polanyi is 97 years old, born January 23, 1929 in Berlin, Germany.
- What zodiac sign is John Polanyi?
- John Polanyi is an Aquarius: born January 23, 1929, which puts the Sun in Aquarius for the whole of that day.
- What is John Polanyi's Chinese zodiac animal?
- The Dragon, with the Earth element, from the Chinese lunar year of the January 23, 1929 birth.
- What is John Polanyi's Life Path number?
- Life Path 9, calculated in numerology.
- What is John Polanyi's Chiron sign?
- Chiron in Taurus at 5°. Position from JPL Horizons.
- Where is John Polanyi's Black Moon Lilith?
- Mean Black Moon Lilith in Sagittarius at 16°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
- What is John Polanyi's dominant planet?
- Uranus, on AsterNym's dominance score (6 points: rules the Sun sign, Aquarius; disposes Sun, Mercury; 1 major aspect). Saturn is second and Mars third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.
