John Turton Randall, 23 March 1905 - 16 June 1984

1987 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 491-535 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
State Physics ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Double Helix ◽  
Great Success ◽  
World War ◽  
Solid State Physics ◽  
Dna Double Helix ◽  
Fund Raiser ◽  
Father And Son ◽  
Personal Engagement

John Randall was an unusual scientist who made outstanding contributions in three very different areas of science. First he made his mark in solid-state physics. Next, for radar he invented (with H. A. H. Boot) the cavity magnetron, which was probably the most decisive contribution of science to the winning of World War II. Lastly, and most significantly, he entered biology and built up a biophysics laboratory that was a world leader in pioneering the new area of molecular biology and contributed to both the discovery of the DNA double helix and of the sliding filament mechanism of muscle contraction. Randall’s success derived from his exceptional energy, foresight and sound judgement. Although an original and even somewhat maverick scientist, he had a very shrewd understanding of how established society worked and, as a result, he achieved great success as a scientific entrepreneur, fund-raiser and administrator. But he was never content with such success and his greatest enthusiasm was always for personal engagement in laboratory work. It is sometimes claimed that creativity springs from contradiction; the aspect of contrast in Randall’s personality and in his work in some ways supports that idea. I began research as a Ph.D. student studying luminescence under Randall, was fairly closely in touch with him during his magnetron work and also worked in his laboratory for nearly all of his biological period (except for his characteristically active retirement). My career depended much on him, and between us there was an undercurrent of father and son relationship. As a result I do not feel I can be wholly objective about him. Therefore, while I give here primarily my own impressions, I also give those of others and quote directly from Randall’s Personal Record written 1962-68 (all unnumbered quotes are from the Record).

Sir Alan Herries Wilson. 2 July 1906 — 30 September 1995

1999 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 547-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.H. Sondheimer
Keyword(s):  
State Physics ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Solid State ◽  
Academic Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Solid State Physics ◽  
Band Theory ◽  
Distinguished Career

Alan Wilson was one of the founders of modern theoretical solid-state physics. In two fundamental papers in 1931 he applied band theory to explain the distinction between metals, insulators and semiconductors and to elucidate the mechanism of conduction in semiconductors. These ideas underlie the later invention of the transistor and many of the developments in microelectronics that are revolutionizing today's technology. After World War II, Wilson left academic life to pursue a second, highly distinguished, career in industry.

scholarly journals Jacques Friedel. 11 February 1921 — 27 August 2014

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian P. Sutton ◽  
Olivier Hardouin Duparc
Keyword(s):  
State Physics ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Solid State ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
World War ◽  
Solid State Physics ◽  
European Physical Society ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

Jacques Friedel was the father of condensed matter and materials physics in France. He was an educator, researcher and leader who transformed physics in France after World War II. He was one of the most respected and influential scientists in Europe, a co-founder of the Laboratory of Solid State Physics at Orsay, President of the European Physical Society, and President of the Academy of Sciences in France.

My Grandfather's Spoon

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Russell Ayres
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Short Story ◽  
World War ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Administrative Services ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Public Servant ◽  
Father And Son ◽  
Australian Department

This short story is about a public servant with the Australian Department of the Arts and Administrative Services, Ayres writes of generational change in the professional and persona} lives of a father and son working in the Service. They hold the last of their 1raditional chess games on the father's final day of his career. The prize for the winner is a family "heirloom" --a spoon stolen by the father's father from a U.S. Navy warship during World War II.

The Largest III International Factory in the North Caucasus (“Caspian Manufactory”): Formation and Development (1899-1941)

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-33
Author(s):  
Medzhid Sh. Huseynov
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Success ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
World War ◽  
Light Industry ◽  
The North ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Factory ◽  
Textile Factory

The article is dedicated to the history of Makhachkala textile factory named after III International (“Caspi-an Manufactory” from the time of its foundation - 1899) to the beginning of World War II (1941). The factory was of great importance for the development of light industry in Dagestan and the North Cau-casus. The factory went through the difficult path of its development, overcoming complex problems during the First World War and the Civil War, and achieved great success by the end of the 1930s. Products manufactured at the factory were shipped to Iran, Central Asia, Moscow, Leningrad and many other industrial centers of the country.

Who Wrote the Book of Life? Information and the Transformation of Molecular Biology, 1945–55

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily E. Kay
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Double Helix ◽  
Logical Necessity ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Electronic Computing ◽  
Dna Double Helix ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The ArgumentThis paper focuses on the opening of a discursive space: the emergence of informational and scriptural representations of life and their self-negating consequences for the construction of biological meaning. It probes the notion of writing and the book of life and shows how molecular biology's claims to a status of language and texuality undermines its own objective of control. These textual significations were historically contingent. The informational representations of heredity and life were not an outcome of the internal cognitive momentum of molecular biology; they were not a logical necessity of the unravelling of the base-pairing of the DNA double-helix. They were transported into molecular biology still within the protein paradigm of the gene in the 1940s and permeated nearly every discipline in the life and social sciences. These information-based models, metaphors, linguistic, and semiotic tools which were central to the formulation of the genetic code were transported into molecular biology from cybernetics, information theory, electronic computing, and control and communication systems — technosciences that were deeply embedded with the military experiences of world war II and the Cold War. The information discourse thus became fixed in molecular biology not because it worked in the narrow epistemic sense (it did not), but because it positioned molecular biology within postwar discourse and culture, perhaps within the transition to a post-modern information-based society.

The contribution of the Gottingen school to solid state physics: 1920-40

1980 ◽  
Vol 371 (1744) ◽  
pp. 104-111 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
State Physics ◽  
Solid State ◽  
World War I ◽  
Alkali Metals ◽  
Photoelectric Effect ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Vacuum Deposition ◽  
World War ◽  
Solid State Physics ◽  
Research Students

The central figure in the story of experimental solid state physics in Göttingen is Professor R. W. Pohl, the director of the ‘Erstes Physikalisches Institut’ throughout these years. Pohl provided not only the continuity but much of the inspiration for the work, and was the active teacher, adviser, supervisor and father-figure to the succeeding generations of his research students and collaborators. Pohl was born in Hamburg in 1884 and died in Göttingen in 1976. He was nominally Professor of Physics in Göttingen from 1916 to his retirement in 1952, but in fact was not able to take up his post till 1919. The Department of Physics was a venerable one; founded in 1789 with Lichtenberg as the first professor, it included among Pohl’s predecessors no less a figure than Wilhelm Weber (1831-7 and 1849-74). After his doctorate in Berlin under E. Warburg, in 1906, Pohl continued to work in Berlin, first on the physics of X-rays with Drude, Rubens and Wehnelt and later with P. Pringsheim on the photoelectric effect. The outbreak of World War I interrupted his work on the photoemission of electrons from alkali metals. During this work Pohl and Pringsheim developed the method of vacuum deposition of metals.® 2>

Solid state physics 1925—33: opportunities missed and opportunities seized

1980 ◽  
Vol 371 (1744) ◽  
pp. 39-48 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
State Physics ◽  
Solid State ◽  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Solid State Physics ◽  
Deputy Chairman

Wilson, Sir Alan H. Born Wallasey 1906. Studied in Cambridge and Germany. University lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge until 1945. Research in electrons in solids; author of Theory of Metals (Cambridge) 1936, 2nd edition 1953. Career since World War I I in industry. Deputy Chairman of Courtaulds, Deputy Chairman of the Electricity Council, Chairman of Glaxo Group.

scholarly journals Re-Envisioning the Artist Hero Through Two Cole Porter Biopics

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Johnston
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Success ◽  
World War ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Night And Day ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Songwriter Cole Porter is unusual in having had two biopics based on his life: Night and Day (1946) starring Cary Grant, and De-Lovely (2004), starring Kevin Kline. The differences in the treatment of the character of Cole Porter between the films are striking, and indicate a change in the way that society envisions its artists, and the very act of creativity. Night and Day was conceived partly as a showcase of Porter's songs, but also as a means of providing inspiration to soldiers returning wounded from World War II, based on Porter's recovery from a traumatic riding accident. It depicts Porter as an everyman following a trajectory of achievement, from having little to great success, which was positioned as easy to emulate. De-Lovely, on the other hand, is about the relationship between Porter and his wife Linda, and the way that his creativity was influenced by his changing relationships with various people. Drawing on the work on biopics of scholars such as G.F.Custen, together with research into the shifting ideas of how creativity operates and is popularly understood, this article uses these biopics as case studies to examine the representation of changing concepts of the artist and the act of creativity through Hollywood film. It also considers how these changing conceptions and representations connect to shifts in American society.

Man with a Mission: Oswald Pirow and South African Airways, 1933–1939

1979 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. McCormack
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
East Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Great Success ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
New Policies

Oswald Pirow was an active and influential cabinet minister in the Hertzog administration in South Africa for more than a decade. Perhaps more than anyone else in office, Pirow shaped the new aggressive Union policies in external matters which stressed a ‘South Africa First’ ideology. Given a free hand by Hertzog, and as minister responsible for defence and transport, Pirow aimed to weaken the British connexion, enhance South Africa's image, and expand Union influence throughout ‘white’ Africa to the north. The agent charged to carry out these new policies was South African Airways, organized by Pirow in 1934 as Africa 's first national airline. As the Union 's ‘chosen instrument’, SAA was used by Pirow to challenge British paramountcy in the Rhodesias and East Africa, in direct conflict with Britain 's own struggling Imperial Airways. The rivalry was for routes and services, mail and passengers, and ultimately for prestige. By 1939, Pirow 's airline was established in operation from Kenya southward, and winning the struggle with its fleet of modern Junkers aircraft. Pirow was the promoter, the organizer and the hard bargainer with whom the British had to deal time and time again. For technical and financial reasons, Imperial Airways could seldom match Pirow 's ambitions, and on the eve of World War II, Pirow could claim great success for his air-minded policy. Only the coming of the war was to remove Pirow and his policy from the scene.

Larry Brown: A Firefighter Finds His Voice

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Samuel Starnes
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
William Faulkner ◽  
World War ◽  
Dirty Work ◽  
White Trash ◽  
The Family ◽  
Yoknapatawpha County ◽  
World War Ii Veteran ◽  
Larry Brown ◽  
Father And Son

This chapter discusses the life and work of Larry Brown. Born in 1951, Brown grew up in rural Lafayette County, Mississippi, the land on which William Faulkner based his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. His father, a World War II veteran haunted by memories of combat, worked as a sharecropper, the original occupation shared by Faulkner's Snopes family, notorious for burning barns and other “white trash” transgressions. When Brown was three, his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. The family returned to Mississippi when Brown was in his early teens, and his father died a few years later. Working-class characters stand at the center of Brown's fiction, and in works dating from the beginning of his career, they frequently speak in the first-person. This is evident in his first collection, Facing the Music (1988), and in his first novel, Dirty Work (1989). Brown's other works include Joe (1991), Father and Son (1996), Fay (2000), The Rabbit Factory (2003), and the posthumously published A Miracle of Catfish (2007).

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