William Standish Knowles
William Standish Knowles (born June 1, 1917, Taunton, United States; died 2012), was an American chemist. Knowles's honours include Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemical Pioneer Award and ACS Award for Creative Invention.
William Standish Knowles’s zodiac sign was Gemini, Chinese zodiac was Fire Snake, with Life Path 7 in numerology.
Gemini, Chinese zodiac was 
Fire Snake, with 
Life Path 7 in numerology.Your match with William
William Standish Knowles’s AsterNym identity
The Evergreen Seeker
Wood represents growth. Wood-led charts are associated with patience, adaptability and the drive to keep developing. Life Path 7 represents inquiry: study, solitude and the need to understand what others may simply accept.
Wood Day Master (BaZi) × mutable Sun × Life Path 7, on the intuitive plane.
How common is the name William in the U.S.?
#9
US rank in 2025
~4,215,725
Americans share it since 1880
1947
its peak year
Of the names registered in 1917, William came 2nd among boys and 519th among girls, carried by 42,422 American boys and 165 girls.
US Social Security Administration public records
What William’s name adds up to
Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.
2
Expression · connecting people
4
Soul Urge · solid ground
7
Personality · composed, private
The name opens on W (5) and closes on M (4). Two values tie for most repeated, 1 and 5: drive against movement.
Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again
William’s lucky numbers, colours and stones
Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.
Lucky numbers
7 · 2 · 8 · 9
Lucky colours
Red & Orange
Lucky day
Wednesday
Direction
↓ South
Season
summer
Stones
Pearl, Emerald, Carnelian
Flower constellation
🌹 Rose · 💜 Lavender · 🌺 Poppy
Rose pink · Lilac · Flame orange
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 1917, 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 William apart
William Standish Knowles took the ACS Award for Creative Invention in 1982, at 65.
Berkshire School and Phillips Academy shaped the training.
Cause of death is recorded as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
On the family side, William Standish Knowles was born to Alice Pierce Knowles (Tiffany).
The encyclopaedia's own shelving for William Standish Knowles: Berkshire School alumni, Monsanto employees and People from Taunton, Massachusetts.
Marilyn Monroe (1926) and Morgan Freeman (1937) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.
- Educated at
- Berkshire School, Phillips Academy and Columbia University
- Awards
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2001), Chemical Pioneer Award (1983) and ACS Award for Creative Invention (1982)
- Cause of death
- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Citizenship
- United States
- Languages
- English
- Wikipedia editions
- 56
What the chart says
William, according to the stars
Core essence
William is two conversations at once and somehow following both. Curiosity is the core of it: the quick question, the sideways joke, the friend who texts you an article at midnight because it reminded them of you. William needs newness the way other people need sleep, and gives the people around them the gift of never being bored.
The vibe
Underneath, William cannot fully relax while anyone in the room is unhappy. The Moon in Libra feels through harmony and hates conflict in their own house. What William needs to feel safe is fairness, softness and a partner in the small decisions. They are at their best when someone else picks the restaurant and they get to enjoy it.
How William wants to be loved
William wants to be loved in conversation. Venus in Gemini falls for a mind first: the banter, the shared joke, the person who keeps them guessing a little. Attention is the love language and boredom is the enemy. Keep talking to William like it is the first week, and it can feel like it for years.
How William creates
How William makes things happen: they grow upward. A Yang Wood day master is the tree, the one with a direction and the patience to keep at it through a bad season. William builds in the open, wants to be useful, and is at their most creative when there is something to reach for. Bend rather than break is the lesson they learn a few times.
Instinct
Instinct: William is wise and watchful, a Snake year, and their gut reaction is to observe before moving. Elegant, intuitive, private, and usually right about people long before saying so. The Fire year turns the volume up: warmer, bolder, more expressive, harder to overlook.
Purpose
Purpose: Life Path 7 is the seeker. William is here to understand, to go deep rather than wide, to keep a private inner world that most people never see. Thoughtful, intuitive, happiest with time alone, and learning to let the right people in.
Triggers
Triggers: being rushed, and being pushed. Mars in Taurus means William is slow to anger and very hard to move once they are. Patience is the superpower, stubbornness its shadow. Let them set the pace and they are unstoppable in their own time.
Computed from William's birth date. Working below.
Where William sits
Six lines
William’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.
You likely balance a tight inner circle with a wider orbit you dip into.
You likely weigh most decisions but can move fast when it matters.
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 William Standish Knowles
Three stars chosen from the real sky above Taunton 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 Taunton that night
Computed for 41.90°N, 9 p.m. local sky.
Alkaid stood nearest the zenith over Taunton at 9 p.m. that evening, 81.9° above the horizon in Ursa Major.
The brightest star above the horizon was Arcturus in Boötes, and 83 catalog stars were up in all.
From 41.9°N not one of the brightest stars stays permanently above the horizon — all of them rise and set.
Nothing below −48.1° declination clears the horizon at this latitude, so Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman were never visible from Taunton on any night.
The Moon, 86% lit at waxing gibbous, was still up; the Sun sat 15° below the horizon.
The name and the places
- Born in
- Taunton, United States
- Lived in
- St. Louis · Dayton
Wikidata records St. Louis and Dayton as William Standish Knowles's home, against Taunton as the birthplace.
The death is recorded at Chesterfield, St. Louis County in 2012.
No birth time is on record, so no astrocartography map can be drawn for William Standish Knowles: the lines move about fifteen degrees of longitude an hour. Shared Places can still draw yours.
How unusual William's chart is
Chart pattern score
53 / 100 · Unusual
2 unaspected planets · A bowl chart
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 →If you only read one paragraph
Gemini Sun
Gemini SunFour conversations, one person.
William Standish Knowles's Sun was in Gemini for the whole of June 1, 1917, so no birth time is needed to settle it.
What Gemini means →Fire Snake
Fire SnakeSays less than it knows.
William Standish Knowles was born on June 1, 1917, which falls in a Fire Snake year of the Chinese calendar.
What the Snake means →Life Path 7
Life Path 7Needs the quiet to work.
William Standish Knowles's birth date, June 1, 1917, reduces to Life Path 7 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.
What Life Path 7 means →What stands out in William’s chart
- The tightest major aspect in William Standish Knowles' date-only chart is Jupiter square Uranus, with an orb of under 1°.
- Three planets, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter, sit together in Taurus, which astrologers call a stellium.
- Five of the ten planets fall in Fixed signs, making Fixed the strongest modality in this chart.
- William Standish Knowles combines a Wood Day Master in BaZi with a mutable Sun and a Life Path on the intuitive plane, the combination AsterNym calls The Evergreen Seeker.
William’s birth chart
Reference chart · birth time unknown
Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 16° to 29° Libra 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
stableJupitersquareUranus0.0° to 0.1° orb
William’s growth grinds against their need for freedom. The angle that irritates, and the one that teaches.
stableMercuryconjunctionMars0.2° to 0.7° orb
William’s mind and drive act as one. Each makes the other louder.
stableMercurysquareUranus2.6° to 2.9° orb
William’s mind grinds against their need for freedom. The friction is lifelong. Worked with, it builds real strength.
stableMercuryconjunctionJupiter2.7° orb
stableVenustrineUranus2.8° to 4.1° orb
stableMarssquareUranus2.8° to 3.6° orb
stableMarsconjunctionJupiter2.9° to 3.4° orb
stableJupitersextileSaturn3.7° to 3.8° orb
stableSaturnconjunctionNeptune5.3° orb
possibleMoonsquareSaturnorb from 0.0° to 11.0° depending on birth time
possibleMoontrineVenusorb from 0.1° to 8.3° depending on birth time
possibleMoontrineUranusorb from 0.1° to 7.3° depending on birth time
Chart signature
Elements
- Fire1 of 10
- Earth3 of 10
- Air4 of 10
- Water2 of 10
Modalities
- Cardinal3 of 10
- Fixed5 of 10
- Mutable2 of 10
Counted across the ten planets by sign: Air leads this chart.
William’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith
What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.
⚷ ChironPisces 29°31′ (moves 0.03° over the day)
centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it
⚳ CeresVirgo 13°26′ (moves 0.23° over the day)
dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured
♡ Eros ℞Scorpio 11°22′ (moves 0.16° over the day)
near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire
⚕ HygieaAquarius 9°58′ (moves 0.03° over the day)
main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well
⚸ Black Moon LilithLeo 22°60′ (moves 0.11° over the day)
mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed
Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith
- Hygiea trine Sun 0.6°
- Black Moon Lilith square Jupiter 0.7°
- Black Moon Lilith opposition Uranus 0.7°
- Black Moon Lilith square Mercury 2.0°
- Chiron trine Saturn 2.1°
- Black Moon Lilith square Mars 2.5°
- Black Moon Lilith sextile Venus 2.7°
- Ceres square Sun 2.8°
William’s dominant planets
1. ☿ Mercury8 pts
rules the Sun sign, Gemini; disposes Sun, Venus; 3 major aspects
2. ♅ Uranus6 pts
in its own sign, Aquarius; 4 major aspects
3. ♀ Venus4 pts
disposes Mercury, Mars, Jupiter; 1 major aspect
Configurations in William’s chart
No stellium, grand trine, T-square, grand cross, yod or kite — the common case.
Minor aspects
semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.
- Mercury quintile Neptune 0.2°
- Venus semi-sextile Mars 0.2°
- Mars quintile Neptune 0.2°
- Neptune semi-sextile Pluto 0.6°
- Mercury semi-sextile Venus 0.7°
- Sun semi-square Saturn 1.9°
More people like William
Other chemists
Born in United States
- Katharine GrahamAmerican publisher, editor and author
- Robert Burns WoodwardAmerican chemist
- June AllysonAmerican actress
- Peter Matthew Hillsman TaylorAmerican writer
- Gwendolyn BrooksAmerican writer
- Ella FitzgeraldAmerican jazz singer
More charts like William’s
Fellow Gemini suns
- Luis Walter AlvarezAmerican experimental physicist, inventor, and professor
- Jordan PetersonCanadian clinical psychologist, author, and political commentator and manosphere activist
- Alanis MorissetteCanadian-American singer
Born in Snake years
- Seanan McGuireAmerican writer
- Philip José FarmerAmerican writer
- Vaughn BodēAmerican underground comics and graphic design artist
Also born on June 1
- Marilyn Monroe1926
- Morgan Freeman1937
- Heidi Klum1973
- Colleen McCullough1937
- Tirunesh Dibaba1985
- Nikki Glaser1984
Fellow Yang Wood day masters
- Taj GibsonAmerican basketball player (born 1985)
- AJ JohnsonAmerican basketball player (born 2004)
- Cameron CarrAmerican basketball player (born 2004)
Other Gemini Snake charts
- Robert KraftAmerican businessman and philanthropist
- Stanley DruckenmillerAmerican businessman
- Hans-Peter WildGerman-Swiss businessman
- Stefano PessinaItalian businessman and CEO of Walgreens
Other Evergreen Seekers
- Jaroslav SeifertCzechoslovak poet, Nobel prize laureate
- Robert Coleman RichardsonAmerican physicist
- Karl Alexander MüllerSwiss physicist
- Claude SimonFrench writer
Famous people with Life Path 7
- Elliot G. JaspinAmerican journalist
- Moneta Sleet, Jr.American journalist
- Herbert FeisAmerican historian
From the journal: Fixed, cardinal, mutable: the modality cheat sheet · Why there are 12 signs and not 13
William’s cards
Computed from June 1, 1917. Tap to flip.
Birth tarot card
The TowerAsterNym identity card
The Evergreen SeekerWestern zodiac
GeminiChinese zodiac
Snake 巳Life Path
7 · Seeker☿ Ruled by Mercury
Quicksilver Hg
The working: BaZi pillarsshow
BaZi pillars
Day Master: yang Wood.
Year
丁
yin Fire
巳
Snake
Fire
roots & early life
Month
乙
yin Wood
巳
Snake
Fire
work & drive
Day
day master
甲
yang Wood
戌
Dog
Earth
you & partnership
Where this comes from, and how it is worked out
William’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q110947 (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 Tina Hager, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The same William Standish Knowles at Wikipedia.
Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by William Standish Knowles.
Quick answers about William Standish Knowles’s chart
- What zodiac sign was William Standish Knowles?
- William Standish Knowles was a Gemini: born June 1, 1917, which puts the Sun in Gemini for the whole of that day.
- What was William Standish Knowles's Chinese zodiac animal?
- The Snake, with the Fire element, from the Chinese lunar year of the June 1, 1917 birth.
- What was William Standish Knowles's Life Path number?
- Life Path 7, calculated in numerology.
- What was William Standish Knowles's Chiron sign?
- Chiron in Pisces at 29°. Position from JPL Horizons.
- Where was William Standish Knowles's Black Moon Lilith?
- Mean Black Moon Lilith in Leo at 22°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
- What was William Standish Knowles's dominant planet?
- Mercury, on AsterNym's dominance score (8 points: rules the Sun sign, Gemini; disposes Sun, Venus; 3 major aspects). Uranus is second and Venus third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.
