My Time at the Royal Institution 1923–27

Bernal, Julio

doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-9961-6_42

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“… 1 One of a series of extraordinarily talented and influential women in British crystallography, and later described by Bernal as ‘the presiding genius of the place’ [ 5 ]. …”

Section: Endnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Crystals: animal, vegetable or mineral?

Hyde

2015

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The morphologies of biological materials, from body shapes to membranes within cells, are typically curvaceous and flexible, in contrast to the angular, facetted shapes of inorganic matter. An alternative dichotomy has it that biomolecules typically assemble into aperiodic structures in vivo, in contrast to inorganic crystals. This paper explores the evolution of our understanding of structures across the spectrum of materials, from living to inanimate, driven by those naive beliefs, with particular focus on the development of crystallography in materials science and biology. The idea that there is a clear distinction between these two classes of matter has waxed and waned in popularity through past centuries. Our current understanding, driven largely by detailed exploration of biomolecular structures at the sub-cellular level initiated by Bernal and Astbury in the 1930s, and more recent explorations of sterile soft matter, makes it clear that this is a false dichotomy. For example, liquid crystals and other soft materials are common to both living and inanimate materials. The older picture of disjoint universes of forms is better understood as a continuum of forms, with significant overlap and common features unifying biological and inorganic matter. In addition to the philosophical relevance of this perspective, there are important ramifications for science. For example, the debates surrounding extra-terrestrial life, the oldest terrestrial fossils and consequent dating of the emergence of life on the Earth rests to some degree on prejudices inferred from the supposed dichotomy between life-forms and the rest.

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“… 1 One of a series of extraordinarily talented and influential women in British crystallography, and later described by Bernal as ‘the presiding genius of the place’ [ 5 ]. …”

Section: Endnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Endnotes 1 One of a series of extraordinarily talented and influential women in British crystallography, and later described by Bernal as 'the presiding genius of the place' [5]. 2 It is indeed a romantic tale, and one may well wonder how a lock of Mozart's hair ended up in Leeds University library!…”

Section: Bridging Regnum Animale Vegetabile and Lapideummentioning

confidence: 99%

Crystals: animal, vegetable or mineral?

Hyde

2015

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“…Bernal remarked 'I myself remember being given a few days of instruction on Kathleen Lonsdale's spectrometer and deciding that I was not made for it: to spend a whole day for only two accurate reflections was quite beyond my patience'. 16 In some respects, however, this was hardly 'women's work'. Lonsdale's description of the X-ray tube circuitry, at 60 kilovolts, was by stretching out our hand we could just touch it.…”

Section: The Position Of Women Scientistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The admission of the first women to the Royal Society of London

Mason

1992

Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond.

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An early skirmish in the history of women and the Royal Society was the proposal for the Fellowship of the physicist and engineer Hertha Ayrton, in 1902. This was not accepted, following Counsel’s opinion that she could not be a Fellow because she was a married woman (and the position of unmarried women was very doubtful). If the Society wished to admit women it should apply for a supplemental charter, which would be granted, given the support of a sufficient proportion of the Fellows. In 1906 Hertha Ayrton received the Hughes medal for original discovery in the physical sciences, 50 years ahead of the Society’s next award of a medal to a woman. In 1919 the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act removed legal barriers to the admission of women by bodies governed by charter. In the debate on the Bill, Martin Conway, Member of Parliament for the United Universities and a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries, raised an amendment specifying membership of the learned societies. This was opposed by the Solicitor-General, who declared that learned societies refusing to elect qualified women members would be acting in opposition to the will of the House of Commons and the intentions of the Government, and could be dealt with when their subsidies came before Parliament under the Civil Service Vote (not that they were). The Antiquaries elected women Fellows from 1920, as did the Chemical Society. At the Royal Society, no woman was proposed again until 1943.

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My Time at the Royal Institution 1923–27

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Crystals: animal, vegetable or mineral?

Crystals: animal, vegetable or mineral?

The admission of the first women to the Royal Society of London

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