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Portrait of Kary Mullis

Kary Mullis

Kary Mullis (born December 28, 1944, Lenoir, United States; died 2019), was an American biochemist. Mullis's honours include Nobel Prize in Chemistry, National Inventors Hall of Fame and Robert Koch Prize.

Kary Mullis’s zodiac sign was Capricorn, Chinese zodiac was Wood Monkey, with Life Path 4 in numerology.

Your match with Kary

Free, no account, stays on this device. Add a birth time later.

Kary Mullis’s AsterNym identity

The Radiant Pioneer

Fire represents warmth, visibility and momentum. Fire-led charts are associated with enthusiasm, expression and the ability to encourage other people. Life Path 4 represents structure: foundations, systems and the patience to continue after the first enthusiasm fades.

Fire Day Master (BaZi) × cardinal Sun × Life Path 4, on the physical plane.

How common is the name Kary in the U.S.?

—

outside the current top list

~3,378

Americans share it since 1917

1972

its peak year

Of the names registered in 1944, Kary came 1,929th among boys and 4,290th among girls, carried by 14 American boys and 6 girls.

US Social Security Administration public records

What Kary’s name adds up to

Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.

6

Expression · taking responsibility

4

Soul Urge · solid ground

2

Personality · warm, careful

The name opens on K (2) and closes on Y (7). The value it repeats most is 3, which numerology reads as voice.

Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again

Kary’s lucky numbers, colours and stones

Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.

Lucky numbers

4 · 9

Lucky colours

Green & Teal

Lucky day

Saturday

Direction

→ East

Season

spring

Stones

Turquoise, Blue Sapphire, Green Aventurine

Flower constellation

🤍 Narcissus · 🤍 Camellia · 🌿 Fern

Frost white · Ivory · Forest

Eight Mansions · Kua number

Kua 1, trigram Kan 坎, East group. Best direction Southeast, worst West.

A different tradition from the Direction above, and a different question: feng shui reads it from the solar year 1944, 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 Kary apart

Kary Mullis took the ASHG Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990, at 46.

Dreher High School and Georgia Tech shaped the training.

Cause of death is recorded as Tos.

The family line: born to Cecil Banks Mullis.

The encyclopaedia's own shelving for Kary Mullis: Scientists from North Carolina, HIV/AIDS denialists and Writers from Columbia, South Carolina.

John von Neumann (1903) and Liu Xiaobo (1955) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.

Educated at
Dreher High School, Georgia Tech and University of California, Berkeley
Awards
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1993), Robert Koch Prize (1992) and Canada Gairdner International Award (1991)
Cause of death
Tos
Citizenship
United States
Languages
English
Wikipedia editions
69

What the chart says

Kary, according to the stars

Core essence

Kary is playing a longer game than everyone else at the table. The core of Kary is quiet ambition and a dry, private sense of humour that only their people get to see. They are the one who actually does the thing, and then does not mention it. Underneath the composure is someone who wants very badly to be proud of what they built.

How Kary wants to be loved

Kary wants to be loved as a friend first, and then as everything. Venus in Aquarius needs freedom, conversation and a partner who finds their strangeness delightful. Rules and jealousy make them cold; acceptance makes them devoted. Let Kary be fully themselves and they will never want to be anywhere else.

How Kary creates

How Kary makes things happen: they light the room. A Yang Fire day master is the sun, warm, visible, impossible to ignore, generous with energy and expecting the same back. Kary creates in front of people and is at their best with an audience and a cause. The work is learning to rest before the fire does it for them.

Instinct

Instinct: Kary is witty and inventive, a Monkey year, and their gut reaction is to play with the problem. Clever, funny, curious, a little mischievous, and quick to land on their feet. The Wood year adds growth: ideals, ambition, a need to be getting somewhere.

Purpose

Purpose: Life Path 4 is the builder. Kary is here to make things that last, to put structure under other people's dreams, to be trusted with the real work. Loyal, practical, honest, and learning that the plan can bend without breaking.

Triggers

Triggers: being fenced in, and being lied to. Mars in Sagittarius fights loud, laughs it off, and is genuinely fine ten minutes later. Kary has boundless energy for anything with a horizon in it and none for the small print. Aim them at something far away and step back.

Computed from Kary's birth date. Working below.

Where Kary sits

Six lines

Kary’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.

Intimate circleWide network
Kary

You likely balance a tight inner circle with a wider orbit you dip into.

DeliberateSpontaneous
Kary

You likely think things through before you act. Haste rarely feels safe.

PrivateExpressive
Kary

You likely share some feelings openly and keep others to yourself.

Cool off firstResolve immediately
Kary

You likely handle some friction right away and let smaller things settle.

PracticalVisionary
Kary

You may favor what's proven and workable over the untested idea.

Gradual trustImmediate chemistry
Kary

You may build trust slowly, letting closeness earn its way in.

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 Kary Mullis

Three stars chosen from the real sky above Lenoir on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.

Kary’s birth-night reference starAlmachwarm orange · AndromedaAlmach, in Andromeda. A warm orange star, 83.8° above the horizon at 9 p.m. local time, the bright star nearest the zenith.Dedicate Almach →The warmest lightBetelgeusedeep red · OrionBetelgeuse, in Orion. A deep red star, 30.7° above the horizon at 9 p.m. local time, the warmest-toned bright star up that night.Dedicate Betelgeuse →

A 9 p.m. reference sky, not the birth minute. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.

The sky over Lenoir that night

Computed for 35.91°N, 9 p.m. local sky.

Almach stood nearest the zenith over Lenoir at 9 p.m. that evening, 83.8° above the horizon in Andromeda.

Sirius was the brightest thing up that night, one of 107 catalog stars above the horizon.

From 35.9°N not one of the brightest stars stays permanently above the horizon — all of them rise and set.

Nothing below −54.1° declination clears the horizon at this latitude, so Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman were never visible from Lenoir on any night.

The Moon, 100% lit at full moon, was still up; the Sun sat 31° below the horizon.

The name and the places

Born in
Lenoir, United States

The death is recorded at Newport Beach, Orange County in 2019.

No birth time is on record, so no astrocartography map can be drawn for Kary Mullis: the lines move about fifteen degrees of longitude an hour. Shared Places can still draw yours.

How unusual Kary's chart is

Chart pattern score

22 / 100 · Reassuringly normal

T-square onto Neptune

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 →

Kary Mullis at a glance

Capricorn Sun

Climbs. Then climbs again.

Kary Mullis's Sun was in Capricorn for the whole of December 28, 1944, so no birth time is needed to settle it.

What Capricorn means →

Wood Monkey

Inventive, restless, funny.

Kary Mullis was born on December 28, 1944, which falls in a Wood Monkey year of the Chinese calendar.

What the Monkey means →

Life Path 4

The one who reads the manual.

Kary Mullis's birth date, December 28, 1944, reduces to Life Path 4 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.

What Life Path 4 means →

What stands out in Kary’s chart

Kary’s birth chart

Reference chart · birth time unknown

Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 18° to 1° Gemini or Cancer depending on the hour.

AriesTaurusGeminiCancerLeoVirgoLibraScorpioSagittariusCapricornAquariusPisces123456789101112Uranus opens doors for Pluto · Sextile, 0.3° orbSun grinds against Neptune · Square, 0.4° orbSun faces off with Saturn · Opposition, 0.5° orbMoon faces off with Mercury · Opposition, 0.5° orbMercury fuses with Mars · Conjunction, 0.7° orbSaturn grinds against Neptune · Square, 0.9° orbMoon faces off with Mars · Opposition, 1.1° orbMoon grinds against Jupiter · Square, 2.1° orbSun in Capricorn · 6°49′☉6°Moon in Gemini · 25°04′☽25°Mercury in Sagittarius · 24°37′ · retrograde☿℞24°Venus in Aquarius · 20°37′♀20°Mars in Sagittarius · 23°57′♂23°Jupiter in Virgo · 27°10′♃27°Saturn in Cancer · 7°21′ · retrograde♄℞7°Uranus in Gemini · 10°05′ · retrograde♅℞10°Neptune in Libra · 6°24′♆6°Pluto in Leo · 9°47′ · retrograde♇℞9°

No birth time, so the houses are a solar chart: the Sun’s sign counts as house 1.

Tap a planet, a sign, a house, an aspect line or an element to see what it means and what sits in it.
Lines drawn
Conjunction 0°
Sextile 60°
Square 90°
Trine 120°
Opposition 180°

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

  • stableSunoppositionSaturn0.0° to 1.1° orb

    Kary’s core identity pulls against their discipline from across the wheel. Two ends of one rope.

  • stableSunsquareNeptune0.0° to 0.9° orb

    Kary’s core identity grinds against their imagination. The angle that irritates, and the one that teaches.

  • stableMoonoppositionMars0.0° to 7.5° orb

    Kary’s feelings pull against their drive from across the wheel. Two ends of one rope.

  • stableMercuryconjunctionMars0.0° to 1.5° orb

  • stableMoonoppositionMercury0.1° to 7.6° orb

  • stableUranussextilePluto0.3° orb

  • stableSaturnsquareNeptune0.9° to 1.0° orb

  • stableMercurysquareJupiter2.1° to 3.0° orb

  • stableMarssquareJupiter2.9° to 3.6° orb

  • stableVenussextileMars3.1° to 3.6° orb

  • stableNeptunesextilePluto3.4° orb

  • stableUranustrineNeptune3.7° orb

Chart signature

Elements

  • Fire3 of 10
  • Earth2 of 10
  • Air4 of 10
  • Water1 of 10

Modalities

  • Cardinal3 of 10
  • Fixed2 of 10
  • Mutable5 of 10

Counted across the ten planets by sign: Air leads this chart.

Kary’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith

What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.

  • ⚷ ChironLibra 3°01′ (moves 0.04° over the day)

    centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it

  • ⚳ CeresLibra 25°14′ (moves 0.34° over the day)

    dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured

  • ♡ ErosAries 28°12′ (moves 0.41° over the day)

    near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire

  • ⚕ HygieaCapricorn 0°39′ (moves 0.41° over the day)

    main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well

  • ⚸ Black Moon LilithLibra 5°03′ (moves 0.11° over the day)

    mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed

Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith

  • Ceres sextile Mercury 0.6°
  • Ceres sextile Mars 1.3°
  • Black Moon Lilith conjunction Neptune 1.4°
  • Black Moon Lilith square Sun 1.8°
  • Black Moon Lilith square Saturn 2.3°

Kary’s dominant planets

  1. 1. ♄ Saturn6 pts

    rules the Sun sign, Capricorn; disposes Sun; 2 major aspects

  2. 2. ☿ Mercury5 pts

    disposes Jupiter, Uranus; 3 major aspects

  3. 3. ♂ Mars4 pts

    4 major aspects

Configurations in Kary’s chart

  • t square, the shape it makesT-square onto Neptune · Sun, Saturn, NeptuneAn opposition with a third planet squaring both ends. Read as a driving tension that resolves through the apex planet.

Minor aspects

semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.

  • Mercury sesquiquadrate Pluto 0.2°
  • Venus biquintile Jupiter 0.5°
  • Venus sesquiquadrate Neptune 0.8°
  • Mars sesquiquadrate Pluto 0.8°
  • Sun semi-square Venus 1.2°
  • Venus sesquiquadrate Saturn 1.7°

More people like Kary

Other chemists

Born in United States

More charts like Kary’s

Fellow Capricorn suns

All about Capricorn →

Born in Monkey years

Year of the Monkey →

Also born on December 28

Fellow Yang Fire day masters

What a Day Master is →

Other Capricorn Monkey charts

Other Radiant Pioneers

The Radiant Pioneer explained →

Famous people with Life Path 4

Life Path numbers explained →

From the journal: Zodiac clashes and the ben ming nian year · Yin and yang: the idea underneath everything else

Kary’s cards

Computed from December 28, 1944. Tap to flip.

Birth tarot card

The Fool

AsterNym identity card

The Radiant Pioneer

Western zodiac

Capricorn

Chinese zodiac

Monkey 申

Life Path

4 · Architect

♄ Ruled by Saturn

Lead Pb

The working: BaZi pillarsshow

BaZi pillars

Day Master: yang Fire.

Year

甲

yang Wood

申

Monkey

Metal

roots & early life

Month

丙

yang Fire

子

Rat

Water

work & drive

Day

day master

丙

yang Fire

寅

Tiger

Wood

you & partnership

Where this comes from, and how it is worked out

Kary’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q157224 (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 Dona Mapston, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The same Kary Mullis at Wikipedia, karymullis.com and IMDb.

Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.

Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by Kary Mullis.

Quick answers about Kary Mullis’s chart

What zodiac sign was Kary Mullis?
Kary Mullis was a Capricorn: born December 28, 1944, which puts the Sun in Capricorn for the whole of that day.
What was Kary Mullis's Chinese zodiac animal?
The Monkey, with the Wood element, from the Chinese lunar year of the December 28, 1944 birth.
What was Kary Mullis's Life Path number?
Life Path 4, calculated in numerology.
What was Kary Mullis's Chiron sign?
Chiron in Libra at 3°. Position from JPL Horizons.
Where was Kary Mullis's Black Moon Lilith?
Mean Black Moon Lilith in Libra at 5°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
What was Kary Mullis's dominant planet?
Saturn, on AsterNym's dominance score (6 points: rules the Sun sign, Capricorn; disposes Sun; 2 major aspects). Mercury is second and Mars third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.

More charts to explore