HISTORY · SCIENCE
J. D. Bernal
John Desmond Bernal was an Irish scientist who pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography in molecular biology. He published extensively on the history of science.
Most acclaimed
The extension of man
1972
The late J.D. Bernal's lectures given to first-year students in physics at Birkbeck College, University of London, are presented here in their entirety, tracing the history of physics up to the end of the classical era at the end of 19th century, just before the discoveries of the subatom and relatively were made. In view of the prestige and profundity of the newer discoveries, Bernal felt that the classical era was being largely forgotten. In this book, he attributes a greater relevance to the work of men from the distant past than is usually given. For instance, the idea of atom not only retains the language of the Greek, Democritus, who first postulated it, but there is also an absolutely unbroken connection between the atom of the Greek and that of the modern physicist. Bernal felt that the historical method would be a suitable introduction to the fundamental concepts of physics, and it is hoped that the readers of the book will be able to see something of the interplay between the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject.
The world, the flesh and the devil
1929
Leaving her home in the sunbleached courts of Avignon, gently nurtured, seventeen-year-old Ninian rides into the darkness and strife of Scotland to marry a stranger. Her path crosses that of Gavin Cameron of Kinveil, priest and Chancellor of Scotland. Laconic, ambitious and handsome, he is the one man the Stewart king dares to trust, the one man strong enough to save the kingdom from the civil war planned by the charming, implacable Archdeacon Columba Crozier and his bastard son, Adam de Verne. Tied by blood on one side and by an overwhelming -- and forbidden -- love on the other, Ninian, growing from her careless girlhood into a beautiful woman and an artist of brilliance and power, is precipitated into violence and tragedy, in which she, too, has a vital part to play.