ONCE attended a lecture given by a visiting professor of geology from
the US. He had surveyed the Brooks Range and the North Slope of Alaska,
and set about informing us of the joys of field work in the wild and woolly.
During the slide show I noticed that in many of the pictures he and
his colleagues appeared to be carrying revolvers. These were there, he explained,
in case one should one day come around a bluff and startle some unsociable
grizzly bear. ‘In which case,’ he went on, ‘you could at least commit suicide.’
Perhaps it was then that I realised I would never make a real scientist.
I admitted to myself that nothing, neither science nor salary, could possibly
induce me to commit an act of field work if there was the remotest possibility
of such close encounters. It is years since I wielded a hammer in anger
and I have long since switched it for the word processor.
In my new life, however, I soon found that scientists giving their lives
in the cause, or subjecting themselves to great personal risk for the greater
good, is the stuff of myth and makes good copy. Familiarity with such dangers
as science normally provides clearly breeds an unhealthy contempt for them.
Scientists have irradiated themselves, blown themselves up, spent their
lives paddling about in carcinogens . . . and thought nothing of it. A scientist
has to do what a scientist has to do, and doing it dangerously does wonders
for the image.
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But there is bravery, heroism and something else – something which,
were its exemplars less august, one might call, well, stupidity. There is
a form of risk-taking which is the reductio ad absurdum of dedication.
Take Professor Edgeworth David, a Welshman who became an authority on
Australian geology and was knighted in 1920. He joined the Shackleton Expedition
to the South Pole in 1908, and on 11 December of that year went off to reconnoitre;
leaving Douglas Mawson, the photographer on the expedition, changing photographic
plates within the darkness of his sleeping bag.
Mawson had closed the bag around himself and begun his vital work preserving
the expedition’s adventures for posterity, when he heard a voice calling
him. It was Edgeworth David.
‘Mawson!’
Mawson answered, his voice muffled by the duck-down.
‘Oh . . . You’re changing plates are you?’
‘Yes, Professor.’
There was silence. After a little while, the call came again.
‘Mawson!’
‘Hullo!’
‘Ah – still changing plates?’
‘Yes, Professor.’
More silence. Minutes ticked by. Then it came again – sounding impatient
now. Fed up with these interruptions, Mawson undid the bag and looked out
– to find the professor hanging by his fingernails to the edge of a crevasse.
Now, as any college barman will tell you, geologists are a dangerous
lot. But they are not alone. Next year, the University of Birmingham celebrates
the 50th anniversary of the invention of the cavity magnetron; the device
which made radar possible, denied Blighty to the Hun, and so brought us
peace and microwave ovens.
The brainchild of John Randall and Henry Boot of the physics department,
this epoch-making device was invented, developed (and, in the early days,
manufactured) by a team of physicists under the direction of Professor Mark
Oliphant, later Sir Mark Oliphant, Governor of South Australia.
Before Randall and Boot’s discovery superseded it, Oliphant was using
a different apparatus to generate microwaves, called the klystron. One day
Oliphant set out to test an early example of this machine, by seeing if
it could detect a barrage balloon, covered with reflective aluminium paint.
To fill the balloon, supplied at great expense by the Admiralty, he used
ordinary town gas from a laboratory tap – a process which had taken all
night.
When day dawned, the team set up the transmitting and receiving equipment
in readiness for the launch. Oliphant, who was famous for getting himself
into the thick of things, took on the job of untethering the wallowing blimp.
The professor was too much of a physicist to do such a thing without
being confident that he was heavy enough to stay on the ground. But all
men, even physicists, are fallible. At the moment of release, an unforeseen
factor entered the equation: the wind suddenly picked up. The balloon, caught
by the gust, hoisted the professor off the ground.
An obvious course of action for sensible people with no wish to be dragged
across the rooftops of Edgbaston would have been to let go smartish. But
there was, after all, a war on, and deadlines were tight. Abandoning the
balloon would have resulted in delay. Oliphant hung on.
Soon, it was impossible to let go. Up, up and away the Poynting Professor
of Physics drifted, at the mercy of forces which, though well within his
ken, remained firmly beyond his control. It could have been the end of a
brilliant career, and he too, like Edgeworth David, might never have lived
to receive his knighthood. But in due course, perhaps a little ashamed of
itself, the wind dropped, depositing Oliphant about 100 metres away; a little
out of breath, but by all accounts unharmed.
Surprisingly, this experience seems to have given Oliphant no fear of
flying. At nearly 88 years of age, he has accepted an invitation from Birmingham
to return from Australia next February and attend a symposium on the anniversary
of his team’s great breakthrough.
The public relations department at the university tells me that, while
photo-opportunities are being considered, a release of balloons is not an
option.
Ted Nield works in the Universities Information Unit of the Committee
of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the United Kingdom.
