bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Royal fossils: The Royal Society and progress in palaeontology
Authors: Budd G. E.
Published: April 2004

The study of the remains of past life is a relatively young discipline, and one that has been defined partly by conflicting demands placed on it by both the life and Earth sciences. Fellows of The Royal Society have made critical contributions both to the growth of material knowledge of the subject and to the expansion of its theoretical basis, especially in the formative decades at the beginning of the 19th century. In particular, British palaeontologists and stratigraphers were pre-eminent in the shift away from viewing the Earth as a young creation conforming to the account in Genesis and towards the modern view of it as an ancient and dynamic system with a distinct history. Despite these early Earth science interests, palaeobiological subjects were also soon a topic of research, ranging from the reconstruction of ancient ecologies to the description of extinct organisms such as the dinosaurs. Nevertheless, palaeontology has notoriously failed to make signal contributions to evolutionary theory and the recent development of areas where palaeontology does have a unique imput to make, such as the global patterns of biodiversity through time and the controversy over mass extinction, has largely been a North American concern. British palaeontologists have, however, made fundamental contributions to the study of major evolutionary radiations, and this tradition is well represented in the current research interests of extant Fellows. Palaeontology remains a poorly defined discipline with little sense of an overarching paradigm, but one important future prospect probably lies with the revival of evolutionary morphology and development as neontological subjects.
Zenographic longitude systems and Jupiter's differential rotation
Authors: Raymond Hide C.B.E.
Published: April 2004

More than ten times the Earth in diameter and 300 times as massive, Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the Solar System. Fifth in order of distance from the Sun, which it orbits in 11.8626 years, Jupiter spins more rapidly than any other planet, with a rotation period of just under 10 hours. Unlike the Earth and the other ‘terrestrial’ planets, Jupiter's principal chemical constituent is hydrogen, mainly in the molecular gaseous form at the visible cloud levels in the Jovian atmosphere, but liquid at the high pressures prevailing at much deeper levels within the planet. The electrical conductivity increases from negligible values near the cloud levels to metallic values at great depth. Differential rotation between equatorial and higher-latitude regions of the Jovian atmosphere is reflected in the two systems of zenographic longitude introduced by observers monitoring the motions of atmospheric cloud patterns. These are Systems I and II with rotation periods
T
1
=35430.003s (9h 50min 30.003s) and
T
2
=35740.632s (9h 55min 40.632s) respectively. The most striking feature of the cloud patterns is the durable (but longitudinally mobile) Great Red Spot, originally known as ’Hooke's Spot’, the first observations of which were recorded in the
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society of London
at the very beginning of its first issue, published in 1665. Differential rotation between the atmosphere and underlying electrically conducting regions is reflected in the need for radio astronomers to use yet another zenographic longitude system—System III, with rotation period
T
3
=35729.771s (9h 55min 29.711s)––when monitoring powerful Jovian sources of non-thermal electromagnetic radiation at decimeter and decametre wavelengths. These are located in the plasma envelope of Jupiter, which is closely tied to the deep interior of the planet by lines of force of the zenomagnetic field.
Predictions
Authors: Thomas J.M
Published: April 2004

The fallibility of predictions of scientific and technical advances is illustrated by errors and omissions.
History of science and technology in education and training in europe
Authors: Debru Claude
Published: April 2004

On 25–26 June 1998, 180 participants from 26 European countries met in Strasbourg for a conference on ‘The History of Science and Technology in Education and Training in Europe’. The conference was organized by the University Louis Pasteur on behalf of the ALLEA (All European Academies) network, within the framework of the European Science and Technology Forum (DG XII, European Commission), and in collaboration with the Division of History of Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science. The conference aimed to foster use of the growing wealth of knowledge in the field of history of science and technology by potential users in universities, schools and secondary education.
Address of the President, Sir Aaron Klug O.M., P.R.S., given at the Anniversary Meeting on 30 November 2000
Authors: Aaron Klug O.M
Published: April 2004

The most publicized scientific milestone of the year is the progress with sequencing the human genome. This, and other developments discussed in the Address, highlight several lessons for science policy. In addition, the President announced two new Royal Society initiatives.
Worldwide connections
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Introduction to the May 2001 issue of
Notes and Records
with a picture of Gabrielle–Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, who translated Newton's
Principia
into French together with a commentary (see pp. 227–245, this issue). (Reproduced from a portrait in the Château de Breteuil, Val de Chevreuse, by permission of M. le Marquis de Breteuil.)
Mapping Russia: Farquharson, Delisle and the Royal Society
Authors: Appleby J. H.
Published: April 2004

The tercentenary of the Moscow School of Mathematics and Navigation, founded under the Scot Henry Farquharson, fell in January 2001, while February 2001 coincided with the 275th anniversary of Joseph–Nicolas Delisle's arrival in St Petersburg to establish astronomy at the Academy of Sciences, inaugurated two months earlier. Farquharson's and Delisle's associations and their cartographic work are discussed in the overall context of The Royal Society.
Cambridge: Newton's legacy
Authors: Hall A. R.
Published: April 2004

Before the death of Isaac Newton (in 1727), the colleges of Cambridge had begun to teach their undergraduates, besides moral philosophy, both natural and mathematical science. Their studies were judged by a University examination soon known as the ‘Tripos’, in which the students were listed in order of merit. By mid–century, knowledge of geometry, of Opticks, and of at least the earlier sections of the Principia, was required to gain a high place. The genius of Newton was firmly impressed upon Cambridge, the ‘mathematical university’.
A bogus Newtonian ‘curiosity’ at The Royal Society
Authors: Keynes M.
Published: April 2004

The portrait of Isaac Newton in 1717 by Charles Jervas (which graced the cover of Notes and Records last year) shows Newton pointing his finger towards a watch. Is this the gold watch thought to have belonged to Newton, which is now kept in The Royal Society? New evidence, presented in this paper, indicates that the watch is bogus, being of later date. So the answer is ‘no’. A gold watch presented by Newton to Richard Bentley in 1717 is another possible candidate, but does not look like the watch in the portrait.
The contributions of J.J. Sylvester, F.R.S., to mechanics and mathematical physics
Authors: Grattan-Guinness I.
Published: April 2004

A survey is made of the papers written by J.J. Sylvester (1814–1897) on mechanics and mathematical physics. Some relate to aspects of his professional career. They form only a small part of the output of this largely pure mathematician, but are of variety and intrinsic merit. Their limited total exemplifies the limited measure of interest that physical applications sustained among some mathematicians during a period when the preference for pure mathematics was increasing worldwide.
The 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics: A close decision?
Authors: Singh R. , Riess F.
Published: April 2004

Raman scattering (in Russia called combination scattering) was discovered in 1928 by Indian and Russian scientists, at almost the same time. In 1930, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to the Indian scientist Sir C.V. Raman, F.R.S., while the Russian scientists G.S. Landsberg and L.I. Mandelstam were rejected. The reasons for this are illustrated by analysing the nomination letters for the three scientists, as well as the report of the Nobel Committee for the year 1930.
Derek Ainslie Jackson (1906-1982): Some recollections of a great European spectroscopist
Authors: Bleaney B.
Published: April 2004

Derek Jackson was the son of Sir Charles Jackson, from whom he inherited shares in the
News of the World
. He attended Rugby School, and then went to Cambridge as a Scholar of Trinity College. He described his time at Cambridge in a pencilled note.
Monuments and microscopes: Scientific thinking on a grand scale in the early Royal Society
Authors: Jardine L.
Published: April 2004

On 25 August 1664 (almost exactly two years before the Great Fire of London) the curator of experiments for The Royal Society in London, Robert Hooke, wrote to the ‘father of modern chemistry’, Robert Boyle (for whom he did regular work as a paid designer and builder of experimental equipment), at his ‘elaboratory’ in Oxford, describing some scientific experiments he had carried out for The Royal Society a few days earlier.
The Wilkins Lecture 2000: Medical futures
Authors: Porter R. S.
Published: April 2004

This paper examines forecasts made by writers, medical and non-medical alike, as to the nature of medicine in a future society. In particular, starting from Plato and Sir Thomas More, it explores what place (if any) has been envisaged for medicine in a future Utopian society. By way of an explanatory device, predictions concerning medicine are compared and contrasted to expectations as to the role of the sciences, natural and social. Investigation of the corpus of social prognostications in fact reveals a dearth of glorious expectations as to the future of medicine as such, although certain writings have held out great hopes for biologistic disciplines, such as eugenics. It is often in ‘golden age’ fantasies about the early history of mankind that the most glowing descriptions of complete health are painted. Similarly, perfect health is something often viewed not in social but in individualistic terms. Explanations are offered of these perhaps slightly surprising facts.
Book reviews
Authors: Fogg G.E.
Published: April 2004

Nine book reviews in the May 2002 issue of
Notes and Records
:
Voyages of discovery: three centuries of natural history exploration
, by T. Rice,
reviewed by
G. E. Fogg.
Charles Darwin's Zoology Notes & specimen lists from H.M.S. Beagle
, R. Keynes (ed.),
reviewed by
P. R. Grant.
Enlightenment: Britain and the creation of the modern world
, by R. Porter,
reviewed by
P. Fara.
Ice blink: the tragic fate of Sir John Franklin's lost polar expedition
, by S. Cookman,
reviewed by
G. F. Hattersley-Smith.
The cogwheel brain: Charles Babbage and the quest to build the first computer
, by D. Swade,
reviewed by
M. Campbell-Kelly.
The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the human brain
, by T. Deacon,
reviewed by
T. Briscoe.
Defining features: scientific and medical portraits, 1660-2000
, by L. Jordanova,
reviewed by
J. Rowlinson.
Against the tide: an autobiographical account of a professional outsider
, by L. C. Woods,
reviewed by
J. T. Stuart.
A passion for DNA
, by J. D. Watson,
reviewed by
J. Postgate.
Éditions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques
Authors: Cook Alan
Published: April 2004

The Committee was founded in 1834 to publish Documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, such as medieval charters; it subsequently extended its interests far more widely and now includes the history of science. The catalogue of its publications, available in 2001, has just been issued from the rue Descartes.
Varieties of science
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Introduction to the September 2001 issue of
Notes and Records
with a picture of Robert Boyle by John Riley. (Royal Society portrait.)
A note on Newton's measurements of film thicknesses and their corresponding (interference) colours
Authors: Hammond C.
Published: April 2004

Newton's
Opticks
is a classic of scientific literature which is readily accessible to the general reader and from which his powers of observation, measurement and deduction may be recognized unequivocally. The fourth (1730) edition, last reprinted by Dover Publications in 1979, includes a Preface by I. Bernard Cohen, a Foreword by Albert Einstein and an Introduction by Sir Edmund Whittaker. More recently A. Rupert Hall's
All Was Light: An Introduction to Newton's
Opticks
1
provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the book, its preparation and subsequent reception.

The object of this note is to examine a small but significant part of Newton's work in the
Opticks
, that of his measurements of the thicknesses of air, water and muscovy glass (i.e. muscovite) films and their corresponding interference colours, which appear in Parts I and II of the second book.
The interest of G. H. Hardy, F.R.S., in the philosophy and the history of mathematics
Authors: Grattan-Guinness I.
Published: April 2004

Hardy's research career shows an orthodox concern with certain areas of mathematics, where he contributed with great distinction. But throughout his career there is also evidence of regular interest in the philosophy and the history of mathematics. The influence of Bertrand Russell is quite marked.
Instrumentation in X-ray crystallography: Past, present and future
Authors: Arndt U. W.
Published: April 2004

This paper deals with the very great changes in X–ray crystallographic techniques and apparatus over a period of approximately the last 60 years. This is not a general history; it is a personal account of the developments with which I have been directly involved; it is, therefore, biased towards apparatus developments in the field of macromolecular crystallography in which I have worked during most of this period. The bias needs little excuse: many of the new techniques of X–ray crystallography were devised initially for large–molecule structure determinations which had most need of such advances in order to be feasible at all. Among them are the uses of computers in calculating electron density maps, the construction of automatic diffractometers and microdensitometers, the introduction of rotating-anode X–ray generators and of microfocus X–ray tubes, the development of electronic X–ray area detectors, the pioneering work on the use of synchrotron radiation for diffraction studies, the building of three–dimensional atomic models by computer and the complete automation of the mounting, selection and alignment of crystals on the diffractometer.
Edmond Halley and the magnetic field of the earth
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Edmond Halley was interested in magnetism from his schooldays to the end of his life, and of all his notable contributions to natural knowledge, his survey of the magnetic field over the Atlantic Ocean surely stands out both for its achievement at the time and for its lasting value. His identification of the westerly drift and his speculations about its origin, his description of aurorae and his connection of them with the geomagnetic field, all demonstrate his physical insight, the grounds for which have only quite recently become apparent. How profound were Halley's studies of geomagnetism has become much more evident in the 57 years that have passed since Sidney Chapman's Halley lecture on the same topic; the advances in geophysics that have taken place in the intervening years are my justification for returning to the subject.
Across the Alps: London and Bologna in the eighteenth century
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Introduction to the January 2002 issue of
Notes and Records
. In the first century of the Society's existence a number of important developments were taking place in Italy, especially in astronomy and biology. The portrait shows Erasmus Darwin. (Copyright © The Royal Society)
The Institute of Science of Bologna and The Royal Society in the eighteenth century
Authors: Cavazza M.
Published: April 2004

English astronomers had known of the astronomical studies of G.D. Cassini, F.R.S., in Bologna even before the foundation of The Royal Society, and throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century and much of the eighteenth, Fellows of the Society were kept informed of Bolognese science, whereas that in turn was often strongly influenced by ideas and discoveries in England. Fellows of the Society were from time to time elected from Bologna, and the Society had members of the Bolognese academy among its Italian Fellows.
Erasmus Darwin's improved design for steering carriages––and cars
Authors: King-Hele D.
Published: April 2004

Carriage journeys in England during the eighteenth century were notoriously dangerous. Rutted and pot–holed roads exacerbated the deficiencies in steering, springing and stability. In 1758 the young Dr Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802; F.R.S. 1761) was travelling about 10,000 miles a year in visits to patients from his house at Lichfield. To alleviate the danger and discomfort of his journey, he developed a design for improved carriage steering and stability, which he road-tested over 20,000 miles on two carriages. In 1765 Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817; F.R.S. 1781) heard about Darwin's design, urged the Society of Arts to enquire about it, and then visited Darwin himself. With the aid of manuscripts from the Archive of the Royal Society of Arts and elsewhere, I offer a reconstruction of Darwin's improved method of steering, which relies on four jointed rods, initially in the form of an isosceles trapezium. The mechanism was reinvented more than 50 years later, and came to be used widely in early modern cars.
The centenary of Einstein's first scientific paper
Authors: Murrell J. N. , Grobert N.
Published: April 2004

Einstein's first paper was concerned with the interaction potential between molecules, and although dismissed later by its author, and largely ignored by the chemical community, it has some relevance to later developments of the subject.
Molecular magnets: the prehistory
Authors: Day P.
Published: April 2004

The circumstances leading to the present worldwide explosion of interest in molecule–based magnetic materials are summarized. Interactions between developments in inorganic coordination and solid–state chemistry with developments in condensed–matter physics are identified as key factors in the emergence of this new field.
Address of the President, Lord May of Oxford OM AC Kt FRS, given at the Anniversary Meeting on 30 November 2001
Authors: May R. M.
Published: April 2004

Over the 340–odd years since it was founded, The Royal Society has seen huge changes, both in the external world and in itself. Against this changing background, however, the Society's core values have remained constant. They are to recognize and to exemplify the highest standards, achievements and aspirations of the intellectual adventure which we call Science. These values necessarily lie at the heart of The Royal Society, underpinning everything we do.
The culture of curiosity at The Royal Society in the first half of the eighteenth century
Authors: Fontes da Costa P.
Published: April 2004

This paper is concerned with the reporting and display of curiosities of nature at the meetings of The Royal Society during the first half of the eighteenth century. It is argued that these activities cannot, as some historians have maintained, be viewed as a mere opportunity for the entertainment of the Fellows. Instead, the reports and exhibitions fulfilled multiple roles, including the promotion of inquiry, education, polite discourse, as well as entertainment, aspects that were intimately connected during that period. Some of the individual and collective interests involved in the reporting and display of curiosities of nature at the Society are also discussed. It is argued that these interests should be considered within the broad context of the culture of curiosity at The Royal Society in this period.
Book reviews
Authors: Wallis Patrick
Published: April 2004

Five book reviews in the May 2002 issue of
Notes and Records
. Andrew Wear,
Knowledge and practice in English medicine, 1550-1680
.
The letters of Sir Joseph Banks: a selection, 1768-1820
, edited by Neil Chambers. Gillian Cookson and Colin Hempstead,
Fleeming Jenkin and the birth of electrical engineering
. Edna Healey,
Emma Darwin: the inspirational wife of a genius
. Michael Bliss,
William Osler: a life in medicine
.
A Roman tercentenary
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Three hundred years ago, on 6 October 1702, the Pope, Clement XI, inaugurated a new meridian line in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome, a line that had been set out by a Fellow of The Royal Society, Francesco Bianchini. In my foreword to our January issue I wrote something of his career at the papal court in Rome, of his activities as an astronomer and his membership of the Accademia Fisicamathematica associated with Queen Christina of Sweden (who then lived in Rome). The portrait shows Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852). (Reproduced courtesy of the Science and Society Library.)
Israel Lyons: a short but starry career. The life of an eighteenth-century Jewish botanist and astronomer
Authors: Glyn L. B.
Published: April 2004

Israel Lyons grew up among the academic luminaries of mid–eighteenth–century Cambridge, but his humble Jewish origins prevented him from becoming a member of the university. Nevertheless, his precocious mathematical genius and his botanical enthusiasm led to a publication on fluxions at the age of 19, and a survey of Cambridge flora a few years later. His botanical skills made him Oxford's choice to lecture on the principles of botany to the young Joseph Banks and 60 of his fellow students, and his mathematical abilities made him the Astronomer Royal's choice for one of the first two computers for the Nautical Almanac. Eventually chosen, through Banks's patronage, as the astronomer for the 1773 voyage toward the North Pole, led by the Hon. Constantine Phipps, F.R.S., his career ended with a tragically early death at the age of 36, but his contemporary fame had been considerable and his achievements were remarkable in the light of his background.
The Royal Society and the Empire: the colonial and Commonwealth Fellowship Part 1. 1731–1847
Authors: Home R. W.
Published: April 2004

Under the statutes of The Royal Society of London, residents of Britain's colonial territories were always eligible for election to the Fellowship on the Home List. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, significant numbers of colonial scientists were elected under this rule. A systematic analysis of the evolution of the Society's rules relating to non–resident Fellows provides the basis for a comprehensive survey of those elected, before the reform of the Society's rules for election in 1847, whose nomination was linked to their service in Britain's dominions overseas. This reveals a steady stream of elections that directly parallels the expansion of British imperial power, especially in India.
Sir George Cayley, the father of aeronautics Part 2. Cayley's aeroplanes
Authors: Ackroyd J. A. D.
Published: April 2004

The first part of this paper (published in the May 2002 issue ofNotes and Records) dealt with Cayley's invention of the aeroplane. This second part continues with a description of the subsequent development of his thinking and his construction of practical aeroplanes.
Editing Faraday
Authors: James F. A. J. L.
Published: April 2004

This article considers the role of publishing the correspondence and papers of individual scientists, especially Michael Faraday's, in the history of science. In turn, the issue of how the history of science fits into general history is discussed with especial reference to the centrality of science in modern society and culture, through education and textbook histories, but is currently generally unrecognized as such. The demonstration of its centrality through modern history of science should foster a much stronger understanding of the position of science in society.
Faraday and Babbage
Authors: Schwarz K. K.
Published: April 2004

The lives of Michael Faraday and Charles Babbage, with their common birth year of 1791, were closely linked by their personal friendship, scientific interests and wide circle of friends. Our ‘electrical civilization’ is synonymous with Faraday and our ‘computer age’ has much praise for Babbage. However, little has been written about their common history; this article is a belated contribution to their bicentenary.
Report. ‘Web of Science History’ project
Authors: Corden J.
Published: April 2004

In 2001 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £43,000 to the ‘Web of Science History’ project, which was put together by a consortium specializing in science and technology, in which The Royal Society was the lead bidder. The project was completed in March 2002. This exciting project provides, for the first time, a unified, standardized, guide to some of the most important scientific archives in the UK: 27,453 pages of existing paper catalogues from 310 collections held by the partner institutions, such as the catalogue of the papers of Dorothy Hodgkin, Nobel laureate for science (Chemistry, 1964), have been converted into electronic format and are available on the ‘Access to Archives’ central database, part of the new English virtual catalogue established and hosted by the Public Record Office at Kew.
Book reviews
Authors: Mandelbrote Scott
Published: April 2004

Seven book reviews in the September 2002 issue of
Notes and Records
: Marie Boas Hall,
Henry Oldenburg. Shaping The Royal Society
. Patricia Fara,
Newton: the making of genius
. Ahmed Zewail,
Voyage through time
. G.I. Brown,
Invisible rays: a history of radioactivity
. Brian Austin,
Schonland, scientist and soldier
. Nicholas Wright Gillham,
A life of Sir Francis Galton: from African exploration to the birth of eugenics
. Robert Hinde,
Why good is good: the sources of morality
.
1703 and other anniversaries
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Introduction to the January 2003 issue of
Notes and Records
with a picture of Vincenzo Viviani (1622 to 1703) by Pietro Dandini. Viviani is one of four Fellows whose death is being commemorated in 2003.
Samuel Pepys FRS (1633-1703) and The Royal Society
Authors: Thrower N. J. W.
Published: April 2004

Born in London during the reign of Charles I, whose execution he witnessed, Samuel Pepys lived through the Interregnum, the Restoration of the Monarchy and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He is known to later generations through his secret Diary, first published in 1825, in which he reported such events as the Plague and the Great Fire of London, and on everyday life in seventeenth-century England. But to his contemporaries he was admired as an extremely able administrator in the Admirality Office. Pepys was elected FRS on 15 February 1665; and during his presidency of The Royal Society (1684-86) Newton's
Principia
was published.
Dalton's unfortunate choice
Authors: Jones R. W.
Published: April 2004

The private papers of John Dalton remained largely unconsidered by his chosen biographer, William Charles Henry FRS, who belatedly produced a hurried and less than satisfactory account of Dalton's life and work. The reasons for Dalton's choice and for its going awry and being redeemed by James Woolley, a member of Dalton's ‘extended family’, who came forward to facilitate a fitting memoir of Dalton, are described in the context of Dalton's life in Manchester. Most of Dalton's papers were lost during the bombing of Manchester in December 1940, and with them went the possibility of a revision of the image of Dalton. Thus the Woolley story and family papers, reproduced here fully for the first time, give new and interesting insights into Dalton's personality, habits and connections.
The Royal Society and the Empire: The colonial and Commonwealth Fellowship Part 2. After 1847
Authors: Home R. W.
Published: April 2004

In the first part of this paper I provided a systematic historical analysis of the election of residents of Britain's colonial territories to The Royal Society of London in the period before the reform of the Society's rules in 1847. Residents of the colonies were always eligible for election on the Home List and significant numbers of Fellows were elected on the basis of colonial careers. In the present paper the analysis is extended to reveal the changing pattern of elections from different parts of the Empire after 1847. After the reform of 1847, election came to be regarded as the ultimate accolade that could be bestowed on a scientist working in the colonies, as it did for scientists working in Britain. The Society thus came to function as the linchpin of an Empire-wide system of scientific patronage and reward that helped to keep colonial science firmly bound to that of the metropolis. By preserving its rules unchanged, even after the breaking up of the Empire after World War II, the Society helped Britain to retain a degree of cultural hegemony, so far as science was concerned, over its former colonial territories, long after they achieved political independence.
An Antipodean laboratory of remarkable distinction
Authors: Greenwood N. N. , Spink J. A.
Published: April 2004

In an astonishingly short period in September 1939, while on a brief visit from England, F.P. Bowden (FRS 1948) conceived the need, and obtained the approval of the Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to establish a wartime friction and bearings research laboratory within the University of Melbourne. He recruited a galaxy of young talent, which during the following six years made major contributions to four very diverse defence-related problems. The infant laboratory survived the peace and eventually evolved into the internationally admired Division of Tribophysics. Many of the original members of the group went on to distinguished careers in Australia, the UK and elsewhere. The story of the exciting early days of the laboratory and the subsequent achievements of its staff are briefly described.
The work of Thomas Andrews and James Thomson on the liquefaction of gases
Authors: Rowlinson J.S
Published: April 2004

Andrews and Thomson worked in Belfast on the liquefaction of gases during the 1860s and early 1870s but much of their work was, for several reasons, not published until many years after it was done, and then only in part. Their surviving notebooks and letters show that their results anticipate some of the better-known and more systematic work of the Dutch school of van der Waals and Kamerlingh Onnes in the 1890s. The dating of the experiments and ideas of Andrews and Thomson on the continuity of the two fluid states and on the unusual behaviour of gas mixtures on liquefaction is the subject of this paper.
‘All that you can't leave behind’
Authors: Ingram N.R
Published: April 2004

The importance of secondary science education to the professional lives of six Fellows of The Royal Society is discussed in the context of Clifton College, an independent school in Bristol, UK, with a powerful tradition of science teaching. The relative importance of the effects of the curriculum, rigorous practical science classes, and classical education are considered. The effect of inspirational teaching by practising scientists is considered to be a significant factor in preparing these students for their professional lives at Cambridge University and beyond.
Ernest Starling's analysis of the energy balance of the German people during the blockade, 1914-19
Authors: Van der Kloot W.
Published: April 2004

Ernst H. Starling FRS (1866–1927) is remembered as a great physiologist; nevertheless a paper of his that is of substantial historical interest has dropped out of sight. It is a quantitative analysis of the effects of the Allied food blockade during World War I on the energy available to the German population and of the failure by the German government to distribute the available energy fairly. He shows that by 1919 a substantial proportion of the urban Germans were starving. His data are summarized in this article. Starling concluded that empty stomachs were a major reason for the German capitulation. His analysis grew out of his work as the second chairman of the Food [War] Committee of The Royal Society and as one of the two British members of the International Scientific Food Commission, pioneering bodies in using science to help to set public policy.
The early years of molecular biology: personal recollections
Authors: Holliday R.
Published: April 2004

The early years of molecular biology were characterized by a strong interaction between theory and experiment. This included the elucidation of the structure of DNA itself; genetic fine structure, recombination and repair; DNA replication; template–directed protein synthesis; the universality of the triplet genetic code, and the co–linearity of the DNA sequence of structural genes and the sequence of amino acids in proteins. The principle of co–linearity was later modified when split genes were discovered.. It is suggested that accurate splicing of gene transcripts might also be template directed. In 1958 Crick proposed a ‘central dogma’ of molecular biology stating that information could not be transmitted from proteins to DNA. Nevertheless, proteins can chemically modify DNA, and this is now known to have strong effects on gene expression.
Robert Willis and Franz Reuleaux: pioneers in the theory of machines
Authors: Moon F.C
Published: April 2004

In this paper, the contributions of two pioneers of kinematics and machine design, Robert Willis FRS (1800–75) of Cambridge University, and Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905) of the Royal Technical University of Berlin, are compared. The process of designing complex machines using mathematical, science–based methods is one of the important achievements of the late industrial age and was advanced by Willis and Reuleaux. These new ‘engineer–scientists’ broke with the workshop tradition of machine construction, incorporating mathematics, new engineering pedagogy, codification of machine practice and scientific principles into machine design that influenced generations of engineers well into the twentieth century.
Book reviews
Authors: Cooke A.
Published: April 2004

Twelve book reviews in the May 2003 issue of
Notes and Records
: Brenda Maddox,
Rosalind Franklin––the dark lady of DNA
. Lisa Jardine,
On a grander scale: the outstanding career of Sir Christopher Wren
.
Physicists of Ireland
, edited by Mark McCartney and Andrew Whitaker.
The Cambridge Companion to Newton
, edited by I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith. David Boyd Haycock,
William Stukeley: science, religion and archaeology in eighteenth-century England
. Martyn Beardsley,
Deadly winter: the life of Sir John Franklin
. J. Browne,
Charles Darwin: the power of place
. M. Chisholm,
Such silver currents: the story of William and Lucy Clifford 1845-1929
. Olivier Darrigol,
Electrodynamics from Ampère to Einstein
. Johanna Levelt Sengers,
How fluids unmix: discoveries by the school of Van der Waals and Kamerlingh Onnes
. Charles H. Townes,
How the laser happened: adventures of a scientist
. A. Macfarlane and G. Martin,
The glass bathyscaphe: how glass changed the world
.
Address given at the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of George Porter OM FRS
Authors: Klug Om Aaron
Published: April 2004

Address by Sir Aaron Klug OM FRS, given at the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of George Porter OM FRS at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, on 21 January 2003.
News: The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award
Authors: Lambert F.
Published: April 2004

News of The Rosalind Franklin Award, The Royal Society's first award focused on promoting women in SET.
Continental connections
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Introduction to the September 2003 issue of
Notes and Records
The founding of St Petersburg in the context of The Royal Society's relationship with Russia
Authors: Appleby J. H.
Published: April 2004

From the Society's first Charter in 1662 to Peter the Great's productive visit to England during 1698, and from the founding of St Petersburg in 1703, three centuries ago, until the city became the official capital in 1712, the Society's contacts with Russia developed in many different ways.
Astronomical labourers: Maskelyne's assistants at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1765-1811
Authors: Croarken M.
Published: April 2004

Nevil Maskelyne FRS held the post of British Astronomer Royal from 1765 to 1811. As Astronomer Royal, Maskelyne's main task was to ensure that the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars were regularly observed and that those observations were published in an accessible form. To do this, and simultaneously to maintain his role within London's scientific society, Maskelyne hired an assistant to undertake the routine work of the Observatory. This paper considers Maskelyne's assistants at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, identifies who the assistants were, and describes their working conditions.
Charles Hatchett FRS (1765-1847), chemist and discoverer of niobium
Authors: Griffith W. P. , Morris P. J. T.
Published: April 2004

Charles Hatchett, the discoverer of the element now called niobium, was the son of a famous coachbuilder, and delivered in person one of his father's coaches to Catherine the Great. It was partly this journey to St Petersburg that stimulated his lifelong interest in chemistry and mineralogy. Using an American mineral in the Hans Sloane collection of the British Museum dating back to 1753 he showed that it contained a new element, which he called columbium. The original specimen on which he worked is now in the Natural History Museum, London. In the decade 1796–1806 he made several other chemical discoveries, but later returned to his father's business and became a noted collector of books, paintings, musical instruments and musical manuscripts.
Nuclear orientation and nuclear cooling experiements in Oxford and Helsinki Part 1. Progress before 1940
Authors: Bleaney B. , Lounasmaa O. V.
Published: April 2004

This paper reviews early developments in the method of adiabatic demagnetization (magnetic cooling) for reaching temperatures below 1 K. Experimental research at Leiden started under Kamerlingh Onnes in 1882; he liquefied helium in 1908 and discovered superconductivity in 1911. Work at Oxford began in the 1920s, and increased substantially when immigration brought physicists from Europe in the 1930s. Experimental research on magnetic cooling was aided by theoretical papers from Harvard by Van Vleck in 1937 and by Hebb and Purcell in 1937. They provided the corrections needed for crystal field and dipolar interactions, which affect the determination of the absolute temperature from the magnetic susceptibility.

†
Deceased.
Nuclear orientation and nuclear cooling experiements in Oxford and Helsinki Part 2. Progress from 1945 to 1970
Authors: Bleaney B. , Lounasmaa O. V.
Published: April 2004

The development of electron magnetic resonance by E. Zavoisky in 1945–46, and the discovery of hyperfine structure in paramagnetic compounds, soon found applications in cryogenics. Methods suggested for nuclear orientation were followed by experiments on magnetic alignment with the use of the radioactive isotope cobalt–60. These showed that the principles of both parity and charge conjugation are violated. Nuclear cooling reached microkelvin temperatures.

†
Deceased.
Nuclear orientation and nuclear cooling experiements in Oxford and Helsinki Part 3. Progress from 1975 to 2001
Authors: Bleaney B. , Lounasmaa O. V.
Published: April 2004

Studies of spontaneous nuclear ordering in metals were started in Finland in 1974, eventually making positive and negative spin temperatures in the nanokelvin and picokelvin regimes experimentally possible. Magnetic susceptibility and neutron diffraction measurements on copper, silver and rhodium metals are described, with particular emphasis on negative spin temperatures.

†
Deceased.
Book reviews
Authors: Anderson Robert
Published: April 2004

Five book reviews in the September 2003 issue of
Notes and Records
: Charles Webster,
The great instauration: science, medicine and reform 1626-1660
. Desmond King-Hele (editor),
Charles Darwin's The Life of Erasmus Darwin
. Jenny Uglow,
The Lunar men: the friends who made the future
. K. Alder,
The measure of all things: the seven-year odyssey that transformed the world
. Boris Stoicheff,
Gerhard Herzberg: an illustrious life in science
.
Rome and the Royal Society, 1660-1740
Authors: Cook A.
Published: April 2004

Most Fellows of The Royal Society in the late seventeenth century knew Rome through their classical education and would have been attracted to visit it for the remains of antiquity and for the new churches and palaces of the papal city. John Evelyn, in Rome 16 years before the foundation of the Society, John Ray, Edmond Halley and Robert Nelson, and Bishop Burnet and G.W. Leibniz, also met people who had links to the Accademia dei Lincei of Prince Federico Cesi, and to the later Accademia Fisica-mathematica associated with Queen Christina of Sweden. Besides astronomy, they were especially interested in cabinets of curiosities and in Vesuvius and other volcanic sites. They met English residents in Rome, especially those around the Venerable English College.
The Nobel laureate Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman FRS and his contacts with the British scientific community in a social and political context
Authors: Singh R. , Riess F.
Published: April 2004

The Indian Nobel laureate Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman FRS (18887–1970) interacted closely with the British scientific community. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1924, was knighted by the Colonial Government in 1929 and was awarded the Hughes Medal by The Royal Society in 1930. With the help of unpublished letters and newspaper clips, we show the influence of Raman's British physics professor on his life. Next we discuss how Raman came in contact with influential British men of science, who nominated him for the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Then we explore the ways in which he promoted Indian science by nominating his countrymen for Fellowship of the Society. Last, we describe how, in 1943–44, the Secretary of The Royal Society visited India to hold a historic meeting and for various reasons Raman did not take part in it.
Address of the President, Lord May of Oxford OM AC KT FRS, given at the Anniversary Meeting on 1 December 2003
Authors: May R. M.
Published: April 2004

When The Royal Society was founded in 1660, life for the average person in the UK was unimaginably different from today. For one thing, largely owing to lack of understanding of infectious diseases, life expectancy at birth was roughly half today's. The intervening centuries have seen huge changes, both in scientific understanding and in its effects on everyday life. People have, of course, been trying for thousands of years to make sense of how the natural world works. But with the advent of the fact-based experimental approach – affirmed in The Royal Society's motto
Nullius in verba
– the lights started to turn on, and science began its continuing journey out from the mists of superstition, dogma, and the apodictic utterances of authority.
Report. Preserving scientific archives: the work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists (NCUACS)
Authors: Harper P.
Published: April 2004

The NCUACS was founded in Oxford in 1973 as the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, moving to the University of Bath with its present title in 1987. Thus 2003 marked our 30th anniversary: a time to celebrate achievement, take stock and prepare for future challenges. Our mission is to locate, catalogue and find permanent homes for the archives of contemporary British scientists and engineers, and thus preserve and make accessible the original source materials for the history of science. We are not an archive repository but a highly cost–effective processing centre. As specialists in scientific archives we act as intermediaries between the scientists or the scientist's families who own the archives and hand them over to the Unit for cataloguing, and the archive repositories that will look after them permanently and provide access to researchers who wish to consult them.
Between the sheets: inter–cell–layer communication in plant development
Authors: Ingram Gwyneth C.
Published: April 2004

The cells of plant meristems and embryos are arranged in an organized, and sometimes extremely beautiful, layered pattern. This pattern is maintained by the controlled orientation of cell divisions within layers. However, despite this layered structure, cell behaviour during plant development is not lineage dependent, and does not occur in a mosaic fashion. Many studies, both classical and recent, have shown that plant cell identity can be re–specified according to position, allowing plants to show remarkable developmental plasticity. However, the layered structure of meristems and the implications of this during plant development, remain subjects of some speculation. Of particular interest is the question of how cell layers communicate, and how communication between cell layers could allow coordinated developmental processes to take place. Recent research has uncovered several examples both of the molecular mechanisms by which cell layers can communicate, and of how this communication can infringe on developmental processes. A range of examples is used to illustrate the diversity of mechanisms potentially implicated in cell–layer communication during plant development.
Dynamics of pre-replication complex proteins during the cell division cycle
Authors: Prasanth Supriya G. , Méndez Juan , Prasanth Kannanganattu V. , Stillman Bruce
Published: April 2004

Replication of the human genome every time a cell divides is a highly coordinated process that ensures accurate and efficient inheritance of the genetic information. The molecular mechanism that guarantees that many origins of replication fire only once per cell–cycle has been the area of intense research. The origin recognition complex (ORC) marks the position of replication origins in the genome and serves as the landing pad for the assembly of a multiprotein, pre–replicative complex (pre–RC) at the origins, consisting of ORC, cell division cycle 6 (Cdc6), Cdc10–dependent transcript (Cdt1) and mini–chromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins. The MCM proteins serve as key participants in the mechanism that limits eukaryotic DNA replication to once–per–cell–cycle and its binding to the chromatin marks the final step of pre–RC formation, a process referred to as ‘replication licensing’. We present data demonstrating how the MCM proteins associate with the chromatin during the G1 phase, probably defining pre–RCs and then anticipate replication fork movement in a precisely coordinated manner during the S phase of the cell cycle. The process of DNA replication must also be carefully coordinated with other cell–cycle processes including mitosis and cytokinesis. Some of the proteins that control initiation of DNA replication are likely to interact with the pathways that control these important cell–cycle transitions. Herein, we discuss the participation of human ORC proteins in other vital functions, in addition to their bona fide roles in replication.