Category: Discoveries

Oxford-born cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) said:“Look up at the stars and not at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” An extraordinary life lay ahead of the boy who would lie in his parents’ garden staring at the night-sky. At age 21, still at university, he found he had the neurodegenerative sclerosis known as ALS, with a life expectancy of just two more years ~ hopelessly wrong, as it turned out!

Hawking first worked with fellow Englishman Sir Roger Penrose (1931-) on the behaviour of black holes and the origin of the universe. He later theorised that black holes emit radiation (‘Hawking radiation’). Although Penrose was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020, it was Hawking who attained worldwide fame, due largely to his soldiering on in the face of increasing physical disability. His state-of-the-art voice synthesiser became synonymous with the public’s impression of a modern scientific genius.

Hawking’s most famous book, ‘A Brief History of Time’ (1988), sits proudly on many a home bookshelf, though is usually only partly read. His other books include ‘The Theory of Everything’  (2002). He was working on an alien detection project when he died.

(Top image: NASA HQ PHOTO at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

It is hard to imagine life today without the multitudinous ways in which silicone is employed, from shampoo to contact lenses to gaskets in aero-engines. Frederic Stanley Kipping (1863-1949) from Lancashire was the first chemist to fully investigate and experiment with the synthesis of silicone compounds and he coined the name ‘silicone’ in 1904. His work in this field lasted from 1901 to his retirement in 1936 and he published 57 papers on it.

The availability of silicone as a rubber substitute was crucial in WW2. In reply to a tribute in 1945 that he and Churchill had ‘won the War’, he famously quipped “Why bring Churchill into it?”! No doubt he would have been just as proud to know that one of the first man-made materials landing on the Moon in 1969 was destined to be the silicone sole of Neil Armstrong’s boot.

With his brother-in-law, the equally eminent chemist William Henry Perkin Jnr. (1860-1929), Kipping wrote ‘Organic Chemistry’ (1894), a classic textbook for six decades. Yet it is his pioneering work on organic/inorganic silicon polymers at the University of Nottingham that has revolutionised industry, medicine, computing, aerospace technology and many other areas of life. Silicone’s amazingly versatile properties place it high in the factors propelling modern civilisation.

(Image of silicone baking tray and oven mitt: pixy.org / CC0)

John Dalton (1766-1844) from Cumberland, compiler of the first atomic theory, was also the first scientist to study colour blindness, after discovering it in himself and his brother in 1794. It is a condition which is better referred to as ‘colour vision deficiency’ since there is a range of effects depending on the functioning of the retina’s cone cells. It is more common in men (8%) than women (0.5%).

In his 1798 paper, ‘Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Vision of Colours, with Observations’, Dalton correctly surmised that it is hereditary. However, his theory on its cause being a bluish tinge to the vitreous was found to be incorrect upon his death, when his own eyes were dissected as he had requested. Nevertheless, colour blindness is also known as Daltonism.

Professor John Mollon (University of Cambridge) and Dr Gabriele Jordan (Newcastle University) began studying the other end of the spectrum in the late 1980s, namely tetrachromacy. This allows a female to see 100 times more shades than the normal million, due to an extra type of cone cell. They finally found such a woman in 2014 but in 2019 their joint paper, ‘Tetrachromacy: the mysterious case of extra-ordinary colour vision’, concluded that this remains a complex research topic.

(Image: Johannes Ahlmann at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

Dr. Francis Crick (1916-2004) was born in Northamptonshire and was one of three scientists awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This was for proposing the double-helix of DNA, which kick-started the field of molecular biology and research into the genetic code. The first diagram of the spiral staircase structure was drawn by Crick’s wife, Odile, and accompanied their 1953 paper, ‘Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’.

Crick met his fellow Prize-winner, the American Dr. James Watson (1928-), while he was working on X-ray diffraction of proteins in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Together they investigated the structure of DNA during 1951-3 and produced a solution, aided by crystallography data from the third Prize-winner, Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004) and using their own visualisations. Watson focused on pairing the ‘bases’ which made up the rungs of the ladder, while Crick created the mathematical modelling.

DNA is packed into the twenty-three pairs of human chromosomes and the discovery of its structure was the clue to how genetic information is reproduced. Crick’s enduring scientific curiosity meant that he eventually moved on to neuroscience. His particular interest was consciousness, unconsciousness and memory, and how they interact with the senses.

(Top image [cropped]: Vernon Barford School at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Dr. James Parkinson (1755-1824) from London was quite the polymath, making strides not only in medicine but also geology and paleontology. He also actively campaigned for universal medical welfare and protection for the mentally ill. Parkinson was one of thirteen founder members of the Geological Society of London in 1807, along with Sir Humphry Davy and he authored three volumes of ‘Organic Remains of the Former World’ (1804-11).

However, his name is best associated with the neurological condition analysed in his 1817 paper, ‘An Essay on the Shaking Palsy’. This describes the “involuntary tremulous motion, with lessened muscular power, in parts not in action and even when supported, with a propensity to bend the trunk forwards..”. The Royal College of Surgeons awarded Parkinson their 1822 Honorary Gold Medal for distinguished research and discoveries.

The ailment was named Parkinson’s Disease from 1876 and its incidence is increasing, unfortunately. There are sub-types and different stages, with the worst accompanied by dementia and the sufferer being wheelchair-bound. In 1812 Parkinson’s son John, also a doctor, was the first to publish findings on the perforation of the appendix leading to death. Coincidentally, a 2018 study (Killinger, B.A. et al) indicates a correlation between early appendectomy and a reduced risk of Parkinson’s Disease.

(Image: wallpaperflare.com)

By 1871 the mapping of India was the most detailed of any country in the world, thanks to the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, begun in 1802. This British project was headed in turn by four military men in the role of Surveyor General. These were Lt.Col. William Lambton (1753-1823), Col. Sir George Everest (1790-1866), Maj.Gen. Sir Andrew Scott Waugh (1810-78) and finally Capt. James Walker (1826-96).

The second of these gentlemen, Everest (pronounced “Eve-rest”), worked on the Survey from 1818 to 1843 and his successor, Waugh, arranged for the newly-measured Himalayan Peak XV on the Nepal-Tibet border to be named after him, i.e. Mount Everest (nowadays pronounced “Ever-est”). Everest objected as the mountain already had a name ~ Sagarmatha ~ meaning ‘mother of the universe’.

Waugh’s accolade of Everest may well have been due to his legacy of highly accurate maps produced with the latest mechanical instruments. His calculations included the 11.5-degree meridional arc from the Himalayas to the southernmost tip of India. This involved advanced mathematics which had to take into account the Earth’s irregular curvature, light refraction and the effect of heat on the metal instruments and 100ft.-long chains. Everest’s expertise contributed to a survey which turned out to be accurate to within 0.09% of modern-day GPS measurements.

(Image: NASA at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

Edinburgh-born Graham Hancock (1950-) grew up in India and studied at Durham University. He is an investigative journalist and author whose 1992 book on the location of the Ark of the Covenant set him on the track of ancient civilisation. He has since spent his life connecting the dots of prehistory, much to the annoyance of established academia who see this as their sole domain. Nevertheless, Hancock’s mission is to encourage further research and much-needed scientific probing of the status quo.

He and his wife Santha, a photographer, spent seven years carrying out more than a thousand scuba dives around the coasts of India, Malta and the Far East. Their book ‘Underworld: Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age’ (2002) showed many fascinating stone structures that were submerged after the 400ft. rise in sea level at the end of the Younger Dryas period.

Hancock is anything but an armchair researcher and travels the world to discover clues for himself. His genius is in piecing together peer-reviewed studies in geology, archaeology and astronomy with religious and ancient writings. ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’ (1995), ‘Magicians of the Gods’ (2015) and ‘America Before’ (2019) are his exploration into what caused the last ice age and almost obliterated our technologically-advanced ancestors.

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(Top image of columns at Göbekli Tepe 11,600 years old: Cobija at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Dr. Joseph Black (1728-99) discovered carbon dioxide (CO2) in 1754 whilst working on his thesis at the University of Glasgow. He is said to have been the first to use gravimetrics, or the weighing, of gases to ascertain changes. On heating magnesium carbonate, Black noticed that it produced what he called ‘fixed air’: an odourless, colourless gas denser than dry air and with different properties. In 1756 he found it in expelled breath and the general atmosphere, and saw that it combined with other chemicals to form compounds.

John Dalton (1766-1844) devised the first atomic theory and created useful symbols for chemical elements, including carbon and oxygen. He discovered that carbon dioxide is composed of two oxygen atoms and one carbon atom, hence CO2. He presented this in Manchester in 1803 but did not publish until 1805 and then 1808 in ‘A New System of Chemical Philosophy’.

Carbon dioxide is put to use in many industrial and commercial ways. For example, it is collected as a by-product of processes such as ammonia production for use in the food and drink industry. It is also released from magma and the burning and fermentation of organic matter. Essential for life, its level in the atmosphere is currently very low.

(Image from the carbon cycle, i.e. crops: Derek Harper at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Astronomer and mathematician Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) from Oxfordshire made the first drawings of what could be seen through the newly-invented telescope in July 1609. Naturally these were of the nearest extraterrestrial object: the Moon. By the end of 1610 he had also observed sunspots ~ dark spots or splodges on the Sun’s surface where magnetic activity temporarily lowers the temperature.

Richard Carrington (1826-75) from London was an amateur astronomer keen enough to build his very own observatory on the side of his house in Redhill, Surrey, in the early 1850s. From 1853 to 1861, whenever there were blue skies he would be observing the Sun via its projection onto a glass plate, from which he made drawings. He published his collection of these drawings in 1863.

They included what became known as the ‘Carrington Event’ of 1st September 1859. This was a huge solar storm, or ‘coronal mass ejection’, the brightest of all recorded in current history. It only lasted five minutes but it affected Earth profoundly the following day with bright, colourful auroras in the sky, disruption to telegraphic communications and the occurrence of electrical fires and shocks. Kew Observatory’s simultaneous observation of a magnetic spike proved the link between the Sun and Earth’s magnetic field.

(Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

It is only in the last hundred years that scientists have discovered a way to treat diabetes, a condition which must have urgent attention if the patient is to be prevented from wasting away. Three Britons are among those involved in the important development of insulin for injection into the body when the pancreas fails to produce its own.

The first was John Macleod (1876-1935), who was born in Perthshire and was a world-renowned physiologist working at the University of Toronto in the early 1920s. He and a colleague were the joint winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923 for their discovery of insulin.

The second was Frederick Sanger (1918-2013), born in Gloucestershire and engaged as a biochemist at the University of Cambridge when he sequenced the primary structure of insulin, discovering its two chains of fifty-one amino-acids in total. This groundbreaking work earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1958.

The third was Cairo-born Professor Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-94), who spent thirty-five years solving the three-dimensional molecular structure of insulin, also determining the structures of penicillin and vitamin B12 along the way. For this she pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964.

(Top image: Marco Verch at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)