I thought you were recording.

Yes, but you said we stop here.

I turn off the camera.

This is a good breaking point.

I shoot after shooting potential
concepts and now, yes, please.

One of the things that Phil Anderson did
while he was with us and was he started

a series of

lectures called Science, Technology, and
Society.
9
00:00:34,0 --> 00:00:39,939
This is, to say it was becoming
fashionable is not correct, but it was
10
00:00:40,6 --> 00:00:42,475
becoming less academic.

That science also had things to say and
it was involved in practical living, not

just fundamental particles.

And so he started a series of lectures,
one lecture per week in the winter term.

So that's eight lectures, which he
called Science, Technology, and Society,

and I helped with.

And these were invited lectures by
different people from around Cambridge.

We could have had people from other

universities and so on.

But there are enough people in Cambridge
who have things, important things to say.

And so they were all, in fact, Cambridge
people, one a week.

And it was interesting that it was part
of our final year physics curriculum in principle.

I mean, the final year had

several options, and one of them was
this course.

The question arose, how can you examine
it?

And the answer is that Richard Eden, do
you know that?

No, he was a high energy particle
theorist, but he gave that up and

started a group on energy theory, use of
energy.

And I remember, for example, one of the
first things his group did was to write

a report for the government of how

How long would it take and how much
would it cost to put proper good
31
00:02:44,397 --> 00:02:50,3
insulation into the ceiling of every
house in the country?

The answer is it could have been done by
the 1990s.

Of course, it wasn't done.

Anyway, that was, Sir Richard Eden also

had this kind of wider interest and
became involved.

And yes, these were all individual
lectures.

I remember one was, they were called,
what were they called?

Well, it was becoming, in the 1960s, the
impact of science

and the environment had started.

And one of the first books was by an
American scientist, Rachel Carson,

called Silent Spring.

Very important.

That was the first one, really, of this
new movement.

So it was following on from that,
suggested these lectures.

I can't remember.

Yes, it was test tube babies.

Well, it wasn't they weren't test tube
babies, but it was artificial insemination.

The baby was born in a person, in a
woman, but the artificial insemination.

And I remember that was something quite
new and a lot of people felt it was shocking.

And in Village Bourne, outside
Cambridge, was a clinic, and that's

where it started, from Cambridge
Hospital as a research group.

And then they set up and set their own
clinic in Bourne.

And the first public lecture on the
subject was in one of our theories.

Right.

So that was interesting.

What roughly was the year or time?

What time?

What year?

What time roughly was this?

This was starting in around 1958 maybe,
something like that.

Then

Phil Anderson was until sometime in the
1960s that he then went back full-time

to Bell Labs, but I carried this on.

until about 1980.

Yes, it must have been 68, I think,
because I think there were 12 lectures,

12 years.

And I finished it around 1980.

And yes, I carried it on with the help
of one or two other people that I attracted.

And after Phil Anderson and Don.

So we continued.

Yes, so I, yes.

I'm trying to remember other specific
ones, though certainly on climate change.

That was the first time I remember
discussion of climate change.

I was in one of those lectures.

Towards the end of that time, near 1980.

Right.

Yes.

And of course, yes, in the early 19,

70s, we had the first oil shock when
the, I can't remember what, I think it

was the oil producing countries that
decided to shut off the oil oil.
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00:06:49,9 --> 00:06:49,843
Yes, yes, yes.

And I remember petrol being rationed and
we all learned to drive much more gently

so that the

A gallon of petrol went nearly twice as
far.

Yes, I remember that.

And of course, the insulation, I mean,
everybody started then to insulate their
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00:07:18,4 --> 00:07:24,411
walls, the cavity walls, and fill it
with polyscine, yeah.

Including we did, and this house was
done before we actually moved here, so

that became general, yes.

But yes, in the loft up there, yes.

So that was, I mean, these lectures,
well,

They didn't belong to any group in the
Cavendish, but they sort of came, yes,

they belong to our group.

This is one of the things that we did.

Then how to assess students who take the
A courses?

Yes.

In part of the final year exam, there
was one paper

which was not an exam paper in the usual
way, but the students had a project

where they had to write an essay.

And they had to write the essay in the
examination room.

So they couldn't just copy it from
somebody else or anything.

It had to go through their brain.

I see.

I see.

But Richard Eden, who had this energy
group, always produced a topic.

And it didn't matter if it was the same
topic enough or similar topics.

So that was how it was examined.

Good question.

Perfect.

One of the things I see that I hear

was about our secretaries.

At that time, each research group had a
secretary and sort of office organizer.

And then when the TCM group started to
really develop a bit, we got a secretary.

Don't?

This was in the

About 1966 or so, about then.

And she was called Susan Cattell.

And was the daughter of a farmer and his
wife was a school teacher.

And they lived in a village near
Cambridge.

And I remember the first day she came,

One of the things that she did was to
type out the list of the group,

including the visitors and so on, and of
course the graduate students.

And she typed that out and then showed
it to me.

And as the secretary was a member of the
group, she put her name at the bottom.

And I said, no, no, no, no, no, your
name's not at the bottom.

After me at the top.

Secretary is a very important person in
communication within the group and keeping.

And well, she was rather surprised at
this.

But that was my New Zealand instinct.

In New Zealand, women were much more
important.

everywhere on farms.

And this was part of the culture.

Okay.

And so this came naturally to me, that
that's how it should be.

And yeah, and that worked well.

I mean, including, you see, we had
always several overseas visitors.

I mean, usually,

One or two may be paid by us, a research
grant, but two or three others would be

just coming on their own money, but be
part of the group as academic visitors
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00:11:41,201 --> 00:11:42,2
of the cabinet.

And so we always had quite an
interesting mixture like that.

was part of the nice things.

Yes, and

And so in England, the government
regulations and university regulations

are very strict about claiming travel
expenses if you go on a trip.

Right.

You have to have receipts and you have
to have a proper list of what meals and

so on.

Some people were not used to that.

They came from cultures where, well, if
you're a professor, you just have to

present some kind of a list and claim
back in the end.

So she had to explain the English
Cambridge system to people who were, you know,

quite senior professors in their own
countries.

And she was just a, she'd been two or
three years out of school.

So she had to have the personality to
cope with this.
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00:13:02,82 --> 00:13:02,282
Right.

Yes.

So we were, so it was an education for
the secretary.

To be in our group, and to be, yes, I
mean, at the top under my name, as a

list in the list of the group.

Right, right.

But this was also part of my New Zealand
culture.

So that was, yes, she then married, in
fact, a graduate student from Canada in

a different department.

also on the Cavendish site, on the same
site, but not in the Cavendish.

And they went to Canada.

The secretary of our time, when I was a
student, was Shira Johnson.

Sheila Johnson.

That was the time when I arrived in TCA.

Sheila Johnson was the secretary.

I notice here that many years later, I
mean, well, some years later, Susan was

deputy, when she retired, yes, she was
deputy head of the English school in Cairo.

In English language, there are English
language schools everywhere in the

world, including in Taiwan, maybe.

Do you have an English language school
in Taiwan?

Yes, She was deputy head of the English
language school in Cairo, in Egypt.

So, I mean, they were very capable
people.

But

I think we helped to make them capable
people.

We made these demands on them.

And they blossomed like a flower.

Right, And I was very pleased with that,
because in other, in a different

culture, they would, but in the New
Zealand culture,

As I developed it.

Have a wonderful.

Yes.

Okay, that's, I think we need to think
as to what else we should talk about.

here is a bit that I, shall I just read
it out?

It's about Sam Edwards.

Yes, and also allow me to remind you,
the name of Mike Paine, Richard Nees,

Rex Godby, they not yet appear in your
story.

No, they didn't exist.

I mean, we...

We're in the 1970s.

Right, Yes, please.

Professor Sam Edwards.

A major expansion of the TCM group came
with the arrival of Professor Sir Sam

Edwards, working on what I called messy
materials, like as polymers, not nice

crystalline metals and other regular
crystal solids.

Indeed, the 1950s had seen an expansion,
extension of condensed matter physics

from the relatively tidy science of
perfectly regular crystalline solids.

A huge variety, but to a different and
more complex world.

The first was to note that if one pours
sand,

or better a set of marbles as precise
spheres into a large container they will

always have a certain loose packed
called loose packed density of spheres

per litre if you just pour them in they
don't form a regular crystal of course

but they have this like a liquid but it
was always the same

And so it was a real state of matter,
like solids, liquids, gases, and loose

packed was the expression.

But if you then shake them, of course,
then they sink.

But they form another close packed, I
mean,

Not close-packed crystal structure, but
what did they call it?

A tightly packed density.

But again, this is a precise density,
within half a percent or something.

There was the loose density, which is
reproducible.

I mean, whenever you do the experiment,
it's always the same.

It's not just sort of a random variable.

No, it's a very precise

state loose packed and then tight
packed.

And then so in Sam Edwards started
research on polymers standing between

solids and liquids polymers.

with long string-like molecules that can
flow slowly.

I mean, they flow by what is called
reptation, by calling like a snake.

And this was a whole new development of
science.

The group was

on polymer research was by Dr.

Athene Donald, later Professor Donald.

She's now head of Churchill College, a
master of Churchill College.

And she had an experimental group on
polymers.
230
00:19:57,30 --> 00:20:05,5
and Sam Edwards when he came and part of
TCM, but he chose to have a room with them.
231
00:20:05,5 --> 00:20:08,708
They were in the Bragg Building, the
back part of the Bragg Building, and he

chose to sit there with them instead of
up in the mock building with the rest of us.

But again, that was his life, to be the
theoretician.

deeply included in that kind of work and
part of the tea time conversation about

what the ideas were, what they were
thinking, what they were doing, and why

was it.

How do you plan the next experiment?

What is the precise question?

You see, in these loose packed things, I
mean, it was not realized that there

were these two precise densities.

loose packed and random, and random
tight packed.

But that they exist as phases.

And that was, I mean, that's the sort of
thing that came out of, I mean, it was

involved in that time.

Yes, not long after he came to
Cambridge, St.

Edwards became the

head of the National Physical Sciences
Research Council, and so worked in London.

But he commuted from Cambridge.

He still lived in Cambridge.

I mean, this was an appointment for a
few years, not just for life.

And so he would travel to London.

And he would

He would continue to have research
students and he would supervise them in

the train.

He would take a first class carriage so
that even in the lush hour of going down

for work, they could have a compartment
and have a physics supervision for a

graduate student.

We all thought that was lovely.

And then the student would turn around
and come back, having been supervised on

the way down.
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00:22:33,53 --> 00:22:33,386
Yes.

There were other people, of course, who
came at that time.

Also, Mark Warner, I think, was the
obvious one.

And
265
00:22:55,8 --> 00:22:59,946
I haven't written in the, I don't, I
cannot, I'm not qualified to say

anything about his work, so I had to
leave it.

I don't, but then other people, well,
Richard Mead started as a research

student on electron gas.

many body theory of the electron gas and
how it worked in practice.

And then he became a young staff member.

I forget what he did.

He didn't stay with that electron gas,
but I forget what he did do then.

And then, and then, after that, it
becomes into the modern world.

I was stopped being head of the group
and other people came.

Yes, I commented here that Phil Anderson
and I, we would have a lunch together at

a quiet pub outside Cambridge every
Wednesday during the eight weeks of what

we call full term, you know what that
is?

Yes.

Talking about the affairs of the group,
but also about the world of physics more widely.

And that was very important.

Yes, and then Mark Warner, who later
also became a professor.

Now, I developed around this time,
around 1980, a totally different collaboration.

One day, I always worked with my door
open,

I had the corner office, I must have
while you were here, and the door was

always open.

So that coming down from the coffee
area, the door was open and you could

see if I was there and whether there was
anybody with me.

Of course, if it was having a
confidential conversation, we chose it off.

But if I was by myself, I would just
work by myself with the door open.

that is symbolic, that says, you're
welcome here to come in.

And one day, a big man stood there and
said, you know something about group

theory, because I'd have written my
book, listen to this.

And that was Des McConnell.

from who was senior lecturer, maybe
already a professor at that time, in

earth sciences, in the mineralogy group
of earth sciences.

And came to me to discuss some of the
clay minerals that he was dealing with.

They do not have a regular

crystal structure, one of the, what is
it, 290 something?

230 space groups.

Yes.

But they have a modulated thing.

And he had worked, he was an
experimentalist, worked on these and

working out the structures.

Of course, he knew all about space
groups and so on.

And showed that the material consists of
two slightly different structures

modulated, one with a cosine and the
other one with a sine function.

And these two existed together.

And this was the stable structure of
these minerals.

I mean, you see, in physics I had
learned that materials, pure materials,

have one of the, what is it, 300, 200
and something?

Yes, 230 space groups.

230 space groups.

It's not true.

These materials had these modulated
groups.

Now, one of them was a cosine and the
other was a sine function.

And there were two different structures
modulated with cosine and with sine.

And of course, there was a relationship
between them because where the cosine

function was at a

It's maximum, I mean, q equal to 0, I
mean, basically a regular crystal structure.

The other one was just going through its
maximum slope, the sine function.

And so it also was a regular thing in
the sense that it was a linear slope

going through the origin.

But not one of the 230 space groups, but
something analogous to it.

And then further on, half a wavelength
further on, quarter wavelength further

on, you have the reverse.

You have the first structure is now
changing rapidly, and the other one is

at its stationary point.

So it was a

a whole new dimension to crystallography
that he had worked out.

And the two space groups and the
relationship, there had to be a symmetry

relationship between them.

But he didn't know what was the physical
origin.

Why did they do this?

And then he and I worked together for,
on and off,

for about 10 years.

Well, he also went to Oxford as a
professor sometime during this time.

But we'd already mostly done our work
before that.

And we would meet at a pub because he
was from a different department in the

center of town and I was out where the
Cavendish is.

And I would have to go to his
department, he'd have to go to one or

the other, et cetera, et cetera.

So we

went out to have a lunch together, and
there we were not disturbed.

Whereas in the department, there's
always a student or something.

And for many years, we would.

And then I learned, I can't remember
how, but I did.

that they are much simpler materials
that also have modulated structures.

One of them is sodium nitrite, NaNO2,
not NaNO3, but NaNO2, because nitrogen

can have different valencies.

And so I looked at that and I worked, it
became clear to me why.

And then we wrote a paper together about
that.

And then we took one or two more
examples, I can't remember what they were.

with quite simple physics.

I mean, sodium nitride is NaNO2.

I mean, it's not a complicated material.

And so one was able to do simple physics
on these two structures and the

relationship between them.

And that was something that we did over
a period of 10 years or so, maybe a bit longer.

as part of my activity, and this was me
leading it from where he had developed

the crystallography.

And then, of course, we would discuss to
some degree, I mean, his complicated

clay minerals, why they should do this.

Once I had worked out, you know, what is
it that can do this with simple

materials like sodium nitride,

And I forget there was another one that
was very simple.

So that was an interesting phase of
research, yes.

I can explain, I can give you a little
picture.

Sodium nitrate is, well,

is a regular tetragonal unit cell.

Well, it doesn't work like this, but
it's basically a tetragonal unit cell of

sodium, and then in the middle is the
NO2 group.

Simple structure.

And the NO2 can be either that way, up
or down.

And why does it want to do that?

And the answer is because it's not very
happy.

It's a triangular group NO2, and it
doesn't really fit into a rectangular cell.

And so the cell is under strain.

And it's elastic strain that makes it go
there and there.

And that relieves the elastic strain of
having this awkward NO2 in the middle of

a nice tetragonal cell.
381
00:34:23,96 --> 00:34:23,496
I see.

So that was, I mean, but then we went
on, there were other ones on a

We found two or three other groups,
other materials that had simple examples

like this where we could actually see
what was the physics reason for it and

wrote paper on that.

So that was an interesting phase of my
research.

Yes.

this then, this had a wider spin-off
that the Earth Sciences Department, they

had somebody who was sort of somewhat
theoretically background, but it was definitely

sort of based on the earth materials.

And it was then when Des McConnell
became head of the department in Oxford,

he introduced a theoretical theorist
into the department there.

And it brought mineralogy from

out of the Stone Age, out of the just
collecting experimental information

about this structure and that structure
and this material and so on.

And doing a theoretical study of why
they did it.

And that was a new chapter in
mineralogy.

And so we contributed to that.

That, yes, it was, I think, it was
quite, I think, important, yes.

As for a few years, I went into
mineralogy conferences, for example.

Yes.

Well, since then, of course, we have
continued to fan out.

I mean, there are now

two, at least two people who are
university staff members, lecturers,
405
00:37:11,731 --> 00:37:21,7
well, now senior professor, I don't
know, in engineering department, ex-TCM members.

And the head of the material science
department is an ex-TCM member.

And one of the senior people in the
mathematics faculty is an ex-TCM member.

And so- Do you remember their name?

Or perhaps I should ask around.

I can look up the person in Earth
Sciences.

I'll do that.

Okay.

So you can switch off.