Author: Purple Brolly

Professor Sir Charles William Oatley (1904-96) from Somerset worked on developing the scanning electron microscope (SEM) for two decades. During WW2 he was involved in radio and radar technology and then furthered his inventive talent with his PhD students in his laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where he himself had been educated. He felt they would learn more by dealing with a real breakthrough challenge.

Eleven fledgling engineers ~ Messrs. Sander, McMullan, Smith, Wells, Everhart, Thornley, Spreadbury, Stewart, Broers, Ahmed and Pease ~ successively assisted Oatley in making gradual, significant improvements to his SEM prototype, until it was finally presented to the scientific market in 1965. Oatley had picked up the initial idea from groundwork in Germany and the USA that had been abandoned.

Whole objects can be placed under the microscope’s electron beam, as opposed to the ultra-thin slices required for its predecessor, the transmission electron microscope. Another benefit is the three-dimensional magnification that it produces on the computer screen, thanks to the configuration of lenses, coils, etc., and the addition of a raster scanner that zigzags over the specimen. There are numerous applications for the SEM, wherever materials analysis or investigation are needed and over 50,000 SEM instruments have been sold worldwide.

(Image of one of the early Cambridge SEMs: Zeiss Microscopy at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Professor Dr Eric Laithwaite (1921-97) from Lancashire was a naturally gifted lecturer and was attached firstly to Manchester University, then Imperial College, London. He was well-known for his radio and television appearances and has been called the UK’s first ‘media engineer’. Another accolade assigned to Laithwaite is ‘the father of Maglev‘, even though he insisted that he did not invent it, but re-discovered it.

In fact, it was Laithwaite who took the neglected theory of magnetic levitation (Maglev) and, from 1947, devised many practical applications of it, most notably in low-speed trains. One such was in commercial use in 1984-95 as a 26mph shuttle from Birmingham’s airport to its international railway station, a distance of 2,000ft.. However, government funds were withdrawn and this futuristic technology went to Japan and Germany.

Maglev is the principle used in the linear motor designed by Laithwaite, which needs no gearbox or wheels and is therefore friction-free. Instead of torque providing propulsion, an electro-magnetic set-up forms a ‘travelling magnetic field’ or ‘magnetic river’ along which an object literally floats. It can be low- or high-acceleration, the latter being intended for space vehicles potentially. Laithwaite also believed he had found amazing gyroscopic properties but struggled to convince his peers.

(Top image: Dan Meerbeek at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Currently one of the most common surgical operations, the hip replacement is the legacy of Professor Sir John Charnley (1911-82) from Lancashire, and it was the British inventions of the high-density plastic polyethylene and PMMA cement that Charnley used to join a stainless steel femoral head to the thigh bone. This inspired combination was first successfully used by Charnley at Wrightington Hospital in his home county in 1962.

Wrightington still offers this treatment today and has become a place of ‘pilgrimage’ for young surgeons. Charnley himself was motivated by his experience as an Army doctor in WW2. Early prosthetics were made of glass, ivory and even Teflon, but these had failed and patients had caught infections during the procedure. Charnley, who recorded everything meticulously, said that “failure is a relentless teacher” as he persevered in his quest to find the optimal materials and technique.

Charnley tracked all of his orthopaedic patients and when any died, he sent his staff to retrieve the hip to check on its status. He set a new high standard for cleanliness and reporting and his influence spread worldwide, giving millions of sufferers renewed quality of life. He also pioneered fusion of joints by compression, and trauma surgery.

(Images LtoR: Public domain and Laboratoires Servier at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)