Ralph and the History of British Science Quiz

Answer: Stuck a bodkin into his eye

Newton pushed the needle so far into his eye that it touched the back wall, where his retina was. Surprisingly, Newton came away with little lasting damage to the eye and carried on his research into optics, which is what had spurred him into carrying out such an odd experiment on himself. Newton's particle theory of light was widely accepted over the wave theory propounded by his rival, Christiaan Huygens. For more information about the contending theories of light, please play my quiz "Light - Particle vs Wave".

Answer: He deduced that planets travelled around the sun in elliptical orbits

During his time at Oxford, Hooke worked closely with Robert Boyle. Hooke made an air pump for Boyle, which was essential for his investigations into the properties of air. Hooke gained a reputation for his excellent practical skills and became the first curator of experiments at the Royal Society in 1662.

The various experiments performed by Hooke allowed him to make many discoveries, such as the theory that the extension of a spring is directly proportional to the load which is applied to it - now known as Hooke's Law.

His work also included "Mircographia", the publication of which was made possible by his work with the compound microscope (which he built) and in which he coined the term "cell". Hooke also built some of the earliest telescopes, allowing him to study the orbits of the planets, but the actual discovery that planets orbited the sun in elliptical paths was made by Johannes Kepler.

Answer: The Eagle

Born in 1916, Francis Crick was driven by his desire to discover "the mystery of life and the mystery of consciousness". His study of proteins using X-ray crystallography at the Cavendish laboratory eventually morphed into the structural study of DNA, as prompted by the young James Watson. Together, the team of Watson and Crick competed with the formidable Linus Pauling to discover the structure of DNA. Pauling incorrectly deduced that DNA was a triple helix with nitrogenous bases pointing outwards, but the team at the Cavendish laboratory reworked this model into a double helix, with bases pointing inwards.

The double helix (or "twisted-ladder") model of DNA won Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins the 1962 Nobel Prize.

Answer: She provided the X-ray diffraction images for the double helix model

Educated at Cambridge and carrying out her work on X-ray crystallography at King's College, London, Rosalind Franklin's images of DNA are said to have been the most conclusive evidence that the molecule was in fact a double helix. However, Franklin's abrasive character and determination to work alone prevented her from gaining any insights from Watson and Crick at Cambridge, or her own colleague at King's, Maurice Wilkins. Unfortunately for Franklin, Wilkins had shown Watson her diffraction images, which convinced Watson and Crick that their double helix model was the right one, allowing them to publish their findings soon after.

The Nobel Prize was awarded nine years later, four years after the death of Rosalind Franklin.

Answer: Britain's first cyclotron

Chadwick began the cyclotron's construction in 1936, a year after he had accepted the position of chair of physics at Liverpool University. The construction of this particle accelerator had caused friction between Chadwick and his friend Ernest Rutherford, discoverer of the proton.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Chadwick's cyclotron was used to show that relatively modest amounts of uranium were needed to create a nuclear weapon, thus aiding Manhattan Project.

Answer: Humphrey Davy

Following a gas explosion during one of his experiments, Davy was injured and required assistance in his other experimental work. Faraday's name was put forward and he was given the job. Faraday became a regular assistant to Davy and even travelled with Davy and his wife around Europe.

Despite their close work relationship, Davy disdained Faraday, often insulting his "wide face" and vacant expression. As Faraday moved into his own independent study, he achieved enormous success in the field of electromagnetic rotation (which allowed for the development of the electric motor).

The antagonistic attitude of Davy towards his former assistant has been put down to jealousy by some, who claim that he was not happy about the young Faraday surpassing him in the excellence of his work.

Answer: The kinetic theory of gases

James Clark Maxwell was the successor of Michael Faraday in the field of electromagnetism. He showed that oscillating electrical charges would produce waves which could propagate through the electromagnetic field. He obtained a value of 310,740,000 metres per second - extremely close to the value obtained for the speed of light. Maxwell therefore concluded that light was part of the electromagnetic spectrum (along with infra-red and ultraviolet waves).

In their work in the kinetic theory of gases, Maxwell and Boltzmann formulated a law which explained how different speeds were distributed to different molecules of a gas.

Answer: Haemoglobin

Dorothy Hodgkin completed her undergraduate degree at Somerville College, Oxford, named for Mary Somerville, another pioneer of women's science. Her work in X-ray crystallography proved hugely successful and can be seen as laying the foundations for the discovery of DNA's 3D structure.

Her work spanned many years, discovering the structure of penicillin in 1949 and of insulin in 1969. She also won the 1964 Nobel Prize in chemistry for her discovery of the structure of vitamin B12 10 years previously. To add to her accolades, she also won the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1976.

Answer: The prediction of the existence of antimatter

Dirac's prediction of the existence of antimatter was confirmed just a few years after by Carl Anderson's discovery of the positron in 1932. For this, Paul Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in physics with Erwin Schrödinger. One peculiar and, as of yet, unexplained observation by Paul Dirac are his large number coincidences. Dirac found that the number 10^40 appeared too often as to not be a coincidence, as he saw it.

For example, the force of electrostatic attraction between an electron and a proton is 10^40 times greater than the gravitational attraction between the electron and the proton. Also, the predicted radius of the known universe is 10^40 times greater than the radius of an electron, and 10^40 is roughly the square root of the number of particles in the known universe.

Answer: Alan Turing

Alan Turing, who has been described as "the man who knew too much", was a quiet man, believed to be autistic (clues 6 and 7). As a young man, he became familiar with Einstein's works and built upon them, allowing him to question Newton's laws of motion (clue 2). His remarkable contributions to science and mankind lay mainly in his work with computers (clue 8). He believed that machines were able to think and that they could be used to carry out similar functions as the human brain, but at a fraction of the speed. This philosophy allowed Turing to develop such "thinking machines" as the Bombe and the ACE (clue 5), the former of which was used in World War Two to decipher the German Enigma code. The efforts of Turing and the performance of his machines during the war were invaluable and some have claimed that it is difficult to think of a person who saved as many lives as Turing during the war. Turing studied and worked at Cambridge before the war (clue 9) and worked at Manchester University after the war (clue 10). One of his latest contributions to science was the mathematical model used to explain how cells develop and assemble (clue 3), as outlined in his 1952 paper "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis".

It is difficult to accept that it was because Turing was a quiet man that his contributions to science and mankind have been so often overlooked (clue 4), since so many great men in the history of science were just as reserved, but who received their due credit. Instead, it seems likely that the name of Alan Turing was tarnished by the discovery after the war that he was a homosexual - a crime at that time in England. As such, Turing was arrested and effectively forced onto hormonal treatment which intended to chemically castrate him. The prejudice Turing faced became too much for him and in 1954 he took his own life by eating an apple which had been dipped in potassium cyanide (clue 1). This unusual form of suicide was probably chosen because of Turing's obsession with the Disney film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

In 2009, the British government made a public apology for the way Alan Turing was treated in the closing stages of his life.