  john desmond bernal frs (; 10 may 1901&nbsp;â 15 september 1971) was one of the united kingdom's best-known and most controversial scientists. known as "sage" to friends, bernal is considered a pioneer in x-ray crystallography in molecular biology. he published extensively on the history of science. ==life== ===origin and education=== his family was irish, of mixed italian and spanish/portuguesebevis marks records, vols 1â6 of the spanish and portuguese jewish congregation, london; miriam rodrigues pereira, ed. sephardic jewish origin on his father's side (his grandfather jacob genese, properly ginesi, had adopted the family name bernal of his paternal grandmother around 1837). his father samuel bernal had been raised as a catholic in limerick and after graduating from albert agricultural college spent 14 years in australia before returning to tipperary to buy a farm brookwatson near nenagh where bernal was brought up. his american mother, nÃ©e elizabeth miller, whose mother was from antrim, was a graduate of stanford university and a journalist and had converted to catholicism.{{harvnb
1901_births 1971_deaths Academics_of_Birkbeck,_University_of_London Alumni_of_Emmanuel_College,_Cambridge British_atheists British_biophysicists British_communists British_former_Christians British_inventors British_people_of_Irish_descent British_people_of_Italian-Jewish_descent British_people_of_Spanish-Jewish_descent British_physicists Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain_members Crystallographers Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society Foreign_Members_of_the_USSR_Academy_of_Sciences Former_Roman_Catholics Historians_of_science People_educated_at_Bedford_School People_educated_at_Stonyhurst_College People_from_Nenagh Space_colonization Stalin_Peace_Prize_recipients Stalinism World_Peace_Council X-ray_crystallography