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.

BBC World Service 'Discovery' tapes

The British Library's Oral History collections include a number of collections relating to science and technology which compliment the Oral History of British Science project.  An overview of the collections can be found on the oral history collection webpages.

One recently catalogued collection is the BBC World Service 'Discovery' tapes. The collection comprises over 360 open reels of 'insert' tapes recorded for the BBC World Service "Discovery" programme between 1971 and 1981; there are around 700 individual interviews within the collection, covering subjects within natural science, applied science, physical science and cognitive science, and include interviews with some of the scientists recorded for An Oral History of British Science.  The collection can be browsed by visiting the collection entry on the Sound & Moving Image Catalogue, and by clicking on the collection name, or alternatively by searching the catalogue using the reference number C540.

The collection was catalogued by Dean Annison during an internship between May and September (2012) which he undertook whilst completing an MA in Archives & Records Management at UCL.

Splits, moves and mergers

Paul Merchant, interviewer for A Changing Planet, writes:

We read in newspapers that the British Antarctic Survey [BAS], based in Cambridge, may merge with the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton [NOCS].  Unsettling and, many argue, damaging for science.  But not historically unusual.  Oceanographers and Antarctic scientists interviewed for An Oral History of British Science tell stories of previous moves, changes and mergers. 

Until 1962 BAS was called the Falklands Islands Dependency Survey [FIDS] and until the mid 1970s it wasn’t based in Cambridge; it had a headquarters in London and worked out of university departments.  Interviewee Janet Thomson began her career as BAS geologist in the Department of Geology, University of Birmingham.  From 1957, interviewee Joseph Farman oversaw the long-term measurement of ozone over Antarctica from an office in the University of Edinburgh. 

The NOCS has an extraordinarily complicated genealogy.  Group W of the Admiralty Research Laboratories (recalled by interviewee Norman Smith) was formed in 1944.  In 1951, Group W joined with marine biologists to form the National Institute of Oceanography [NIO], which moved to Wormley in Surrey in 1953 (on life and work in the NIO, see interviews with Sir Anthony Laughton and David Cartwright).  In 1965, the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC] took control of NIO and, in 1973, merged NIO with the Institute of Coastal Oceanography and Tides [ICOT], Bidston, near Liverpool and the Unit of Coastal Sedimentation [ICS], Taunton, to form NERC’s Institute of Oceanographic Sciences [IOS].  In 1987 the Liverpool and Wormley parts of the IOS were un-merged, to form the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Bidston and the IOS Deacon Laboratory [IOSDL], Wormley.  As NERC’s Director of Marine and Atmospheric Science (1986-94), interviewee John Woods campaigned successfully for a new purpose-built centre for British oceanography: the Southampton Oceanography Centre [SOC], opened in 1996.  IOSDL moved from Wormley to the SOC, merging with departments of the University of Southampton.  In 2005, SOC was reorganised and renamed the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton [NOCS].         

We wait to see what will happen next.

Personal Geographies of Science

Thomas Lean, interviewer for Made in Britain, writes:

I was reading an article by Janet Vertesi a little while ago on how the distinctive London Underground Map, with its differences from a 'real' map of London has affected how travellers think about the representations of urban space (Vertesi, Social Studies of Science, 2008). It got me thinking a little bit on how my own perception of the geography of Britain has been warped somewhat over the last few years by talking so much to scientists about the scientific places they once worked in.

For example, I can't see a train to Malvern any more without instantly thinking “TRE” - the home of Britain's wartime radar research. Place names instantly connect themselves to companies and establishments and technologies in my mind. Farnborough = the RAE = Aeroplanes. Wembley = GEC = All manner of electronics. Warton = English Electric = Aeroplanes. Bristol = Jet engines. The Isle of Wight = Saunders Roe = Hovercraft and Rockets (definitely not sandcastles and beaches). And so on. My whole knowledge of places has been subtly conditioned my learning about the history of science. Fortunately enough, looking at the British Society for the History of Science travel guide, it seems I'm not the only one. But actually trundling across much of this landscape myself, visiting scientists who retired near the places they worked, I get a rather personal take on it.

I wondered for a while why I spent so much time going through Reading on my travels. But a quick look at the place names around it on the map makes it clear, if you know what you are looking for: the old International Computers Limited [ICL] facilities at Reading and Bracknell, the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, the Vickers aircraft factory at Weybridge; to the West, the nuclear research sites of Aldermaston, Harwell and Culham lie within about 30 miles of each other, conveniently close to Oxford, with its university, and Abingdon, home of high-tech manufacturer Oxford Instruments. I could go on, but the clustering of high-tech industries is a well known phenomena. Companies and establishments need to work together, need a supply of trained staff, need each other's services, and often spin-off new organisations in new fields.

The other interesting thing is how much these places themselves have changed. A couple of years ago I strolled hrough the housing estate that had once been the Hawker's aircraft factory in Kingston with aircraft designer Ralph Hooper, marvelling at the way all the road names were named after aeroplanes. One of the pleasing things of our project is how much we've been able to record places that don't exist any more, in the words of those who worked in them, and the great changes in other locations over the years. As the following video, featuring Sir John Charnley discussing the contrast between A-shed in Farnborough in the 1950s and 2011, neatly demonstrates, place can be a powerful focus point for understanding change.

 

Sir John Charnley's audio and video interview are catalogued on the Sound & Moving Image Catalogue under reference C1379/30.

Voices of Science - Building our new website

Thomas Lean, interviewer for Made in Britain, writes:

At the moment we're all pretty busy with developing Voices of Science, the new website for An Oral History of British Science, scheduled for completion next year. One of the things we've always hoped for is to make an archive that is easily accessible to all sorts of people from around the world who want to learn about the history of science in Britain, and we're all really excited by the prospect of Voices of Science. The shear volume of data we've collected has reached the point where it's quite intimidating, especially given the fact we've been recording for less than three years. So far we've recorded over 80 individuals, with more to come, a rather staggering total of over 800 hours so far. That's rather a lot of data for anyone, and helping people to get through it has always been one of our concerns - this is where Voices of Science comes in.

Based on the interviews from the project, the website will be more than just an entry way into the collection of interviews, but a history of British science in itself, told through the voices of the people involved. The website will be built around hundreds of short clips from the interviews, illustrating significant moments and big history of science themes, but also showing aspects of life as a scientist that people outside rarely get to see - hobbies, family life, interactions with colleagues, and day to day work in the lab. We're going to have more video interviews, and unique personal photographs from interviewees to illustrate their lives in science, as well as new ways of helping people navigate their way through the collection. After three years of stalking the land in search of 'victms' (as one or two of them have referred to themselves, hopefully in jest...) and hundreds of hours of sitting chatting to scientists and engineers as individuals, it's going to be really exciting seeing what the aggregate of this all is. More updates on Voices of Science as we get more done!

Further Oral History of British Science interviews online

Further interviews from An Oral History of British Science are now available via the British Library Sounds website.

The latest interviews available are:

• Dr Raymond Bird, electrical engineer and computer designer
• Professor Fred Vine, geologist
• Ralph Hooper, aeronautical engineer
• John Scott-Scott, aeronautical engineer
• Dennis Higton, aeronautical engineer
• Professor Sir Tony Hoare, computer scientist
• Professor Dame Julia Higgins, polymer scientist and physicist
• Mike Hall, laboratory manager and technician in climate history
• Richard Brett-Knowles, electronics engineer
• Andrew Gilchrist, climate modeller and research meteorologist
• Ron Bridle, civil engineer

Completed interviews not yet available online can be accessed onsite at the British Library via the Listening & Viewing Service.  All the Oral History of British Science interviews are catalogued on the Sound & Moving Image Catalogue under reference C1379.

 

Science in Public conference 2012

Dr Paul Merchant, interviewer for A Changing Planet, writes:

Much of the discussion at this year’s Science in Public conference focused on public access to the data and final outputs of scientific work, especially journal articles.  Most agreed that papers reporting on publically funded research ought to be free to read.  Various practical and ethical problems were discussed. 

I was very excited by a paper on the translation of scientific findings/papers into documents that might be both accessed and understood by ‘the public’ (in the sense of non-scientists).  By thinking about different conceptions of ‘translation’ from Actor-Network Theory and the work of philosopher Paul Ricoeur, the speaker raised questions about what should and should not be lost in translating science into publically understandable science.  

Interviews for An Oral History of British Science contain many examples of scientists attempting to translate their work for audiences of non-scientists.  Geologists recall public lectures.  Geophysicists remember, in detail, their involvement in television programmes explaining plate tectonics.  Climate scientists reflect on interviews for local and national newspapers, and television news programmes.  Scientists of all kinds describe their contribution to public exhibits, from stalls at the British Antarctic Survey open days, to permanent exhibits at the Science Museum.    

Perhaps I should have examined some of this material for my own paper at Science in Public.  Instead I used the interviews to consider science in public in another sense – scientific work actually conducted in public, among ‘the public’.  I played a number of clips, including this in which the late Russell Coope remembers practising palaeoclimatology in gravel quarries:    

 

Russell Coope remembers practising palaeoclimatology in gravel quarries

 

I argued, first, that scientists engaged in fieldwork in public and semi-public places encounter members of the public (farmers, quarry workers, tractor drivers) whose own engagement with and understanding of environment cannot simply be regarded as unscientific.  And second, that it is during these encounters with members of the public in the field that scientists are most likely to reflect on their own identity as scientists – with delight, or anxiety, or both.

I am pleased to say that other delegates at the conference expressed great interest in what some of them called ‘the data’ – the interviews themselves.  Many were intrigued to hear that An Oral History of British Science is recording (and making available) scientists’ memories of and reflections on their whole lives, including childhood, education, career, family life, relationships, hobbies, passions, dreams, retirement.  Search content summaries and transcripts via the Sound & Moving Image Catalogue (under reference C1379; search tips can be found here) and listen for yourself at British Library Sounds.   

Peering down from the shoulders of giants onto ever smaller particles

Thomas Lean, interviewer for Made in Britain, writes:

The recent news from CERN that scientists may have found the elusive Higgs Boson at last, has excited those interested in science around the world. Yet the discovery of the "God particle", for all its hype, is just the latest episode in a long running story of scientists' search to understand the fundamental building blocks of which everything is made.

In the late 19th and first half of the 20th century the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge were world leaders in nuclear physics and the search to understand the structure and behavior of the atom, and what it was made of. As with CERN's search for Higgs, it was a multinational effort. At Manchester in about 1912, where one might bump into Brian Cox today, worked Hans Geiger, the German inventor of the Geiger radiation counter, the brilliant Danish theoretical physicist Niels Bohr, New Zealander Ernest Rutherford, and many more besides. From this generation of gifted scientists, came the discoveries of one of the most exciting periods in the history of physics. In 1897, J. J. Thomson discovered the electron, in 1911 Rutherford suggested the existence of the atomic nucleus and in 1917 discovered the Proton, in 1932 James Chadwick proved the existence of the neutron, and in 1937 John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton "split the atom." Within 40 years scientists transformed our understanding of the world on a fundamental level - it was no wonder that Rutherford remarked that "all science is either physics or stamp collecting" even if it he was awarded a Nobel Prize for chemistry rather than physics.

Sadly this generation of physicists are now beyond the attention of oral historians, but they did not go unrecorded, and amongst the collections of the British Library are a handful of recordings that give us a few hints as to what these people were like. Amongst them, this 1933 recording of Ernest Rutherford discussing the structure of the atom in the rich, New Zealand accented voice, sounding just as we might imagine the grand old man of British Nuclear Physics to sound like.

Ernest Rutherford - Transmutation of the Atom

Sound clip © BBC Motion Gallery.  BL Sound & Moving Image reference: 1CD0249358 D2 BD14