Subject: Reminiscences: Homely Environment
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:35:19 EDT
Good writing again by Kerry! In those days (mid seventies) the economy was hit by a four times increase in oil (1974), which meant that tenure was getting very hard to achieve by open competition, unless one was lucky to be properly invited to a tenured job. A lot of people function best in their own cultures, for example Newton in East Anglia (he was born at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire and worked at Cambridge), Maxwell in Aberdeen, Hamilton and Fitzgerald at Trinity College Dublin. A lot of Welsh scholars gravitate back to Wales, and that is quite natural. It must also be remembered that I am from a Welsh speaking, village, coal mining culture, very different from East Anglia or Oxfordshire and different even from Cardiff or Swansea. Coal mining communities were very close knit, because of the dangers. Added to this is the fact that even in this working class culture, my father was an indentured farm servant, so of the lowest social stratum. He was however an acutely intelligent and discerning man with no formal education. My earliest visit to Aberystwyth was in about 1957 or so, and I felt distinctly out of place even there, because of negative attitudes to coal miners. The latter kept the country going in very dangerous conditions, and were very generous and cultured people. There is no doubt that the University of Wales was founded by people like the coal miners, in the hope of giving education to their children. I clearly recall being told repeatedly to work hard and keep away from the drift mine. It never entered my mind to go to Oxford or Cambridge, because the UW was available in Wales. Similarly Mareschal College was available for Maxwell at Aberdeen. It was only due to the merger of this College with another at Aberdeen that Maxwell very reluctantly moved to Cambridge, and then only for a few years. Darwin retired to live with his sisters away from the academic scene, but had his supporters against the Bishop of Oxford in the famous debate.
Dear Myron,
Please find below the latest page of Crystal Spheres.
     It was soon being noticed back in Oxford that Myron was not around as often as would have naturally been expected. Myron was being asked questions by President Sir Henry Fisher at Wolfson why he was not spending all his time there. This was a very awkward situation. The march of papers down Myron’s Omnia Opera gives an impression of stability at this time, but this was far from being the case. At the EDCL Mansel found out that Myron had been sleeping there and kicked up trouble about the fact that the insurance of the EDCL did not allow itinerant scientists to shelter overnight in laboratory, room 262 and went on to write Myron a stinker of a letter, overlooking the fact that he had asked Myron to supervise Gareth, a thing that he should have done. Eventually this chaotic situation righted itself when Myron found some typically terrible accommodation back in Aberystwyth for a while (this time with a room with no window, just a hole in the wall) before eventually renting Martin Beevers’ house in Tal y Bont while he was on sabbatical and at last Myron was happy again.       The stagnation of Gareth’s work was remedied by a Government award to Rowlinson and Myron of a new interferometer system and by the strong development of theory, as can be seen form papers 7 to about 20 on the Omnia Opera of www.aias.us. At this time, Rowlinson kindly allowed Myron to go back to the EDCL together with the new Grubb Parsons / NPL system to replace the failing equipment at Aberystwyth. Rowlinson had recognized that Myron was unhappy at Oxford because he had put down his roots in Aberystwyth and wanted to work there for the rest of his life! The major advance of the memory function method appeared in paper 20 of the Omnia Opera. Gareth Evans was able to produce ever better quality data on which Myron was able to bring both theory and computer simulation to bear. Thus, Gareth’s spirits improved and he graduated Ph .D. in 1977. The computer simulation was a long, slow arduous slog, because it had to be carried out on the UMRCC CDC 7600 computer, with zero priority, and very slow turnaround times. Nevertheless Gareth and Colin had proved themselves and were to become important members of Myron’s new research group that was forming at the EDCL.           All that was needed now was for Myron to apply for suitable funding to provide for his living costs back at Aberystwyth and his research group could become active. Purely by accident Myron saw a British Ramsay Memorial Fellowship being advertised and decided to apply for this.  Myron won the Ramsay Fellowship according to Mansel by miles, which was music to Myron’s ears, but tenure to go with it in Aber was not forthcoming and so Myron like Einstein would become something of a wandering scientist for much of his life. Myron had been in a good position to obtain tenure in Oxford, but had preferred to follow his heart back to Aberystwyth.  This was something that Myron just had to do and so the risk to his career was factored in to his voluntary return to Aberystwyth.  As Myron returned to Aberystwyth the Edward Davies Chemical laboratories was reaching its zenith and had claims to be the best chemical physics department of its type in the world.  However, this fact was recognized in Cambridge and greedy eyes were being pointed at the EDCL leading to a series of events which would ultimately lead to the demise and untimely closure of the oldest and best Chemistry Department in the University of Wales!  Kerry
