The End of the MillenniumAuthor(s): Alan CookSource: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), p. 273Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/532181 .

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Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 54 (3), 273 (2000)

THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM

In this, our last issue of the Second Millennium, we have articles that range widely in time, from our first president, Lord Brouncker, to our current president, who figures in the account of molecular biology and Peterhouse, Cambridge. The span of subject is also wide, from pure mathematics to molecular biology and passing through the Galapagos Islands.

Viscount Brouncker, a courtier and a colleague of Pepys at the Navy Office, is sometimes disregarded as a scientist, but the two-part account of his work shows that he was an innovative mathematician. Halley certainly knew him as such, for as an undergraduate, he sent his first paper to him for comment, and Brouncker suggested a few improvements.

The story of the connection between one Cambridge college, Peterhouse, and the development of molecular biology is intriguing, and it is recounted not only in the article by Sir John Meurig Thomas, but also in the three books of which reviews appear after it. No one seems to have set out deliberately to make Peterhouse the powerhouse of the science in England, but so it turned out. The Fellows of the college who have been involved have not been in a single university department, and one at least is an engineer. The college society seems to have brought together people with common interests but different backgrounds at a time when the very concept of molecular biology was still to be formulated. There are lessons here for those who profess to set the aims of research and support it, if they would but read and understand.

We welcome articles such as that on Peterhouse because they record, while still in contemporary memory, aspects of the history of science that are overtaken by the formally published books and papers.

Sir Alan Cook

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© 2000 The Royal Society

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