Oral History of British Science

Joseph Farman and the ‘ozone hole’

Joseph Farman, CBE, who died recently, was the British Antarctic Survey scientist who discovered the ‘ozone hole’ using instruments called Dobson Spectrometers pointed at the sky above Antarctica. I interviewed Joe for An Oral History of British Science over six long sessions in 2010 and 2011. I felt sad to hear that he had died; he was interesting, warm and extraordinarily funny on and off the recording. I would like to use this blog to allow Joe to comment on his Telegraph obituary in which we learn that ‘In 1990 Mrs Thatcher paid generous tribute to Farman for sounding the alarm at an international conference on the ozone layer.’ Here is Joe’s account of the conference:

Joseph Farman recalls the 1990 Saving the Ozone Layer conference

The Telegraph Obituary also emphasises the importance and success of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Joe, himself, was less impressed:

Joseph Farman comments on the Montreal Protocol

We find in these two clips a striking feature of what we might call Joe’s ‘character’ or ‘personality’: the tendency to stand irritated and amused alongside an absurd political and media culture in which ‘scientific knowledge’ can float away from its context in muddled and exaggerated claims. Darkly funny throughout, Joe’s life story interview captures the exasperation of someone who refused to stray from reporting what his instruments had recorded – low ozone concentrations in the peculiar environment of the Antarctic stratosphere – even if that meant covering his face in television interviews:

Joseph Farman remembers a television interview on the ozone hole

For a clip of our video of Joe with one of his Dobson Spectrometers at the British Antarctic Survey, see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ1uFGLtwHo

For the full interview, go to
http://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Science/021M-C1379X0007XX-0001V0

 

Paul Merchant

Ideas in the bath?

Dr Thomas Lean writes:

 From Isaac Newton 'discovering' gravity thanks to a lucky falling apple, to Alexander Fleming finding penicillin in his untidy lab, great scientific discoveries have long been told as stories about lucky chance and serendipity.

But is it really luck?

Or is it just easier to explain complicated science through simple stories? Is it modesty? Or perhaps, as microbiologist Louis Pasteur put it, “in the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind”? Or perhaps something else entirely?

Last Monday saw An Oral History of British Science try to put the matter to rest once and for all, with the first of our evening public events. Four interviewees from the project - Professor Dame Julia Higgins, Professor Chris Rapley, Professor Cyril Hilsum, and Professor Mike Baillie - came together to discuss how serendipity had touched their careers, in areas as diverse as electronics engineering and dendrochronology, with historian of science Dr Charlotte Sleigh to add a historical perspective.

The results of our experiment certainly made for an entertaining evening... and you can see what we came up with on this video.

And if you want to know more about scientists and luck, check out Charlotte Sleigh's blog on the subject of luck and science - Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, Newton?

Or Douglas Heaven's reflection of the evening at the New Scientist blog

Keeping The Lights On: Introducing An Oral History of the Electricity Supply Industry

Tom Lean, interviewer for Made in Britain and An Oral History of the Electrical Supply Industry, writes:

2012 has seen the start of a new National Life Stories project on the history of technology.  An Oral History of the Electrical Supply Industry will create a national collection of interviews with the people who shaped and operated the electricity industry in Britain. Expected to comprise around 45 life story interviews, the project will document the development of an industry which has become part of the fabric of life in Britain, but whose operations remains largely hidden to those outside it.

The industry itself has changed dramatically over the years. Before the 1940s, Britain's electricity industry was a patchwork of local independent electricity companies and corporations linked, to some extent, by a centrally controlled National Gridiron of high power cables. In 1947 it was nationalised into the British Electricity Authority. In 1955 it was reorganised into the Central Electricity Authority. Then reorganised again in 1957 to create the Central Electricity Generating Board and Electricity Council. And in the 1990s it was split up into various parts and privatised.

In the same period, electricity use in the home went from being a relatively uncommon novelty to being utterly essential. To feed this need for electricity the means of its production developed too. Small local power stations were replaced by enormous facilities, built atop mines to satisfy their hunger for coal. Nuclear power promised to generate electricity too cheap to meter, before its risks and costs became clear. As environmental concerns have built, renewable energy sources, wind and hydro-electric power, have become more important. Along the way, through postwar fuel shortages and consumer demands for one-bar electric fires, long hard winters, oil crises, miners' strikes, political dithering, technical troubles and other events, tens of thousands of people worked every hour of every day, to keep the lights on, no matter what.

An Oral History of the Electrical Supply Industry will document the development of the industry, and its day-to-day operation, through the life stories of those involved. Further information on the project can be found on through the National Life Stories webpages.

Electrical appliance stand at Lincolnshire show c.1938.  Courtesy of Frank Raynor.