Standing On the Shoulders of Health & Safety

The world today would probably be a very different place if they’d had Risk Assessments in 17^th century Britain. If we’d been as preoccupied with ‘Health & Safety’ and scientific ethics committees back then as we are now, scientists wouldn’t have been able to get up to half the hair-raising laboratory exploits which they’d deemed Good Ideas and subsequently made brilliant discoveries and observations (well, some of the time. A lot of the time I imagine the only observations were
“*?!@*!!, that hurt!”).

Sir Isaac Newton. Mezzotint by J. MacArdell after E. Seeman, 1726. Image: Wellcome Images

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was no exception. He is of course renowned for his famous discovery of gravity, prompted by the most well-timed apple to ever fall out of a tree in history*. But, like many scientists of his day, as well as being a thinker he was also frequently given to self-experimentation.

One day – at a time when he was studying refraction of light and colour perception – Newton was seized by the notion to take a long needle (called a ‘bodkin’, used for stitching leather) and ‘put it betwixt my eye and [the] bone as neare to [the] backside of my eye as I could’ – just to see what happened, of course.  Incredibly, the answer was not a lot, or at least nothing like the horrendous lasting damage you would expect from sticking an excruciatingly large needle in your eye. Instead, Newton noted that ‘there appeared severall white, darke and coloured circles’ in his vision.

Outlandish experiments on eyes that would make us lesser mortals cringe seemed to be Newton’s forte, as in his notebooks he also recounts pressing on his eyes with his fingers on several occasions, and notes the different coloured circles he saw as a result of this pressure. On another occasion he decided to stare into the Sun for as long as his eyes could bear, just to see what effect it had on his vision when he then looked at sheets of white paper. Again, he remarkably suffered no lasting damage from this episode of kamikaze eye experimentation.  Despite his worrying lack of self-concern, you can’t deny the enthusiasm with which he embraces the ‘I wonder what would happen if…’ mind-set which has been responsible for of some of the most brilliant scientific discoveries.

Perhaps one of the strangest thoughts is that – of all things – a book about fish might have prevented Newton’s most famous work – the ‘Principia Mathematica’ – which revolutionised mathematics, from ever being published. In 1686, when Newton wanted to publish his mathematical masterpiece, The Royal Society was in bad financial waters having just funded ‘The History of Fishes’ by John Ray and Francis Willughby: a now obscure work full of beautiful – but expensive – engravings and diagrams of fish. Luckily for science-as-we-now-know-it, Edmund Halley (after whom the famous comet is named, but his is a story for another Friday…), a friend and admirer of Newton, decided to pay for the publication of the ‘Principia’ himself. Fortunately for Newton, Halley had a position as a clerk at the Society, however due to their financial situation they struggled to pay him his salary; and it seems  they were so close to bankruptcy that he was allegedly paid in copies of ‘The History of Fishes’.  I doubt we could so easily find a scientist today who would be as willing to take one for the team and be paid for their efforts in books on fish. One can only imagine what he did with them. All in the name of science, eh?

*And while we’re on the subject of Isaac Newton, I thought I’d share this little gem with you:

 ‘Oh, he was that man who had a light bulb fall on his head.’ – One enthusiastic little boy at a school science workshop I was running, in answer to the question ‘Can anyone tell me who Isaac Newton was?’  He said it with such conviction, nodding sagely and looking knowledgably around at his friends, that I experienced a definite moment of ‘eh?’ I’m not sure if he was thinking of Newton or Thomas Edison, but either way, he made me chuckle!

More on Newton, and some excerpts from his notebooks: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Footprints_of_the_Lion/private_scholar.html

The Incredible Shyness of Henry Cavendish

 If history has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes science is – quite frankly – absolutely bonkers. One of the things I love about science is that, throughout our admirable, steadfast quest for understanding, we scientists haven’t half done some ridiculous things. The history of science is full of delightfully odd characters, outrageous rivalry, wacky contraptions and instruments, not to mention some rather questionable experiments that would fly in the face of Health & Safety and ethics committees today (think suspiciously-acquired body parts, hair-raising self-experimentation and being just a little too laissez-faire with deadly bacteria). So, to bring a bit of a chuckle to your Fridays, every week I’ll be sharing some of science’s silliest tales and anecdotes which have tickled me, leaving you in no doubt as to where the ‘mad’ in ‘-scientist’ came from. Enjoy!

Image: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

Today in our Facebook and Twitter-savvy society we are plagued by the over-use of many annoying words and phrases. Take ‘awkward’ for instance: the word-of-choice of many young people, particularly. These days everything and everyone is ‘so awkward’, whether it’s accidentally wearing odd socks, or realising that you’ve gone out and bought the wrong type of milk. I feel your pain. But, I think it’s time to put things into perspective a little: because you see, there’s awkward…and then there’s Henry Cavendish. Wander back into the mid-18^th century – an age obsessed with the physical properties of fundamental things such as gases and electricity – and you might just meet one of the most brilliant yet strangest of Britain’s physicists: Henry Cavendish. But then again, as a man whom one biographer described as ‘shy to a degree bordering on disease’, actually you probably wouldn’t. Best known today for being the first person to isolate hydrogen, to combine oxygen and hydrogen to produce water oh, and for weighing the Earth; Henry Cavendish was born in 1731, conveniently into one of the richest families in England at the time. He spent most of his adult life ensconced, like a fairy-tale princess, in what can only be described as a ‘Science Palace’, having used his wealth to build an enormous lab full of gizmos and gadgets. He seldom spoke to anyone and even his domestic servants were under strict instructions only to communicate with him in writing (one can only assume that he was summoned to dinner every evening by paper-aeroplane.) His only regular ventures into society were to weekly club gatherings of science’s movers and shakers back then, where other guests were warned that on no account were they to even look at Cavendish, let alone be so outrageous as to approach him. For those that did wish to make scientific conversation with him, the suggestion appears to have been that they behave as one might when trying to avoid startling a rare and nervous wild animal and ‘wander into his vicinity as if by accident and to talk ‘as if into vacancy’.’ If their contribution was of scientific worth, they might receive a mumbled reply; but more often than not, as one Lord Brougham recollected, they would encounter a ‘shrill cry’ and a fleeing Cavendish shuffling from the room post-haste. But, of course, this could only be applied if you happened to have picked an occasion when our dear HC had gotten as far as actually entering the room, as biographer remarked in 1851: ‘I have myself seen him stand a long time on the landing, evidently wanting courage to open the door and face the people assembled, nor would he open the door until he heard someone coming up the stairs, and then he was forced to go in.’ Indeed, Cavendish seems to have been a master of escape to an extent that almost puts Houdini to shame, something which surely deserves some recognition. He may have labs named after him, but I heartily suggest that the artful manoeuvre of escaping awkward social occasions should henceforth be referred to as ‘the Cavendish’. Next time you find yourself at a boring party, perhaps cornered by someone telling you how ‘totally awkward’ something was, why not whisper to the person next to you ‘I’ve had enough, let’s Cavendish!’ and make a speedy exit, with optional high-pitched squeak of outrage. But it appears that sometimes he couldn’t even find refuge at home in his science-fort. On one occasion he is reputed to have answered the door to a well-meaning Austrian admirer of his work, who proceeded to lavish him with praise. For a few minutes a horrified HC received these compliments as if they were physical ‘blows from a blunt object and then, unable to take any more, fled down the path and out the gate, leaving the front door wide open’ and no doubt a rather confused Austrian on his doorstep. Allegedly several hours passed before Cavendish could be persuaded to come back home. In the late 19^th century – well after his death – upon going through his papers it became apparent that Cavendish had been so absorbed in his work that he’d somehow not thought to mention he’d either discovered or anticipated, amongst other things: the law of the conservation of energy, Ohm’s Law, Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures, Richter’s Law of Reciprocal Proportions, Charles’ Law of Gases and the principles of electrical conductivity! Notice the theme that most of these things now bear the names of other scientists, and therein is something even more flabbergasting than the fact that the endearing eccentricity of one incredibly shy physicist generates enough anecdotes alone to almost justify a blog in itself. But, if there had been a ‘Cavendish’s Law’, part of me likes to think that it might have been this: ‘run!’