J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and PoliticsBrenda Swann, Francis Aprahamian An eminent molecular physicist and path-breaking crystallographer, an eloquent and prescient writer on the social implications of science, an early foe of pseudo-scientific racism and an indefatigable campaigner for peace and civil rights: as a scientist and a Communist intellectual, J.D. Bernal was caught up in many of the dramas of the twentieth century. As Eric Hobsbawm describes here, Bernal played a major role in the dynamic 'red science' movement of the 1930s, whose ideas on links between science and society are only now being accorded their full significance. Bernal's The Social Function of Science remains a classic analysis of the way in which wider social relations may determine the boundaries of both scientific understanding and practice. Impressed by Bernal's relentless questioning of received ideas, Mountbatten recruited him to the brilliant scientific team of his 'Department of Wild Talents' during World War Two, to help in planning the Normandy landings. After the war, Bernal strove to combine running the Department of Physics at Birkbeck College, London, with travelling and campaigning through six continents against the nuclear threat of the Cold War. In a field notorious for its mysoginism, Bernal's laboratories at Birkbeck were a haven for many of the leading women scientists of the day, among them Rosalind Franklin and the Nobel Laureate Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. And, as James Watson has acknowledged, Bernal's X-ray photographs of molecular structures formed a vital piece of evidence on the path leading to the discovery of DNA. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, different facets of Bernal's life and work are recounted and assessed by Eric Hobsbawm, Hilary and Steven Rose, Ivor Montagu, Ritchie Calder, Francis Aprahamian, Brenda Swann, Roy Johnston, Chris Freeman and Peter Mason |
Contents
Irish Roots | 17 |
Political Formation | 37 |
The Scientist | 78 |
The Social Function of Science | 101 |
Two Strands from a Life in Three Colours | 132 |
Bernal at War | 160 |
Memories of Desmond Bernal | 191 |
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J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and Politics Brenda Swann,Francis Aprahamian No preview available - 2018 |
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academic activities analysis architecture atoms beach biology Birkbeck College bomb Britain British building C. P. Snow Cambridge capitalist civil Committee Communist Party conference countries critical crystal crystallography defence Desmond Bernal dialectical materialism Diaries diffraction discussion economic effective experience fascism Frédéric Joliot-Curie French Function of Science Haldane human Ibid ideas important industrial Institution intellectual interest involved Ireland Irish J. B. S. Haldane J. D. Bernal J. D. Bernal Archive Joliot-Curie laboratory Labour Party later lecture left scientists London Lysenko major Marxism meeting molecular Mountbatten movement nature Nenagh officer organization paper physicist physics planning political position possible problems radical revolution role Rosalind Franklin Science in History Scientific Workers Sinn Féin Social Function socialist Solly Zuckerman Soviet Union staff structure theory tion University USSR waves World Peace Council wrote X-ray Zuckerman