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John Desmond Bernal Biography

John Desmond Bernal

John Desmond Bernal FRS (/bərˈnɑːl/; 10 May 1901 – 15 September 1971) was an Irish scientist who pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography in molecular biology. He published extensively on the history of science. In addition, Bernal was a political supporter of communism and wrote popular books on science and society.

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John Desmond Bernal Quotes

The only way of learning the method of science is the long and bitter way of personal experience.

Bitter, Experience, Long, Method, Way

The region of the mysterious is rapidly shrinking.

Mysterious, Rapidly, Region, Science, Shrinking

As the scene of life would be more the cold emptiness of space than the warm, dense atmosphere of planets, the advantage of containing no organic material at all, so as to be independent of both these conditions, would be increasingly felt.

Advantage, Atmosphere, Dense, Increasingly, Independent, Space

Published papers may omit important steps and the memory of men of science, even the greatest, is sadly fallible.

Fallible, Memories, Men, Science

The question of the origin of life is essentially speculative. We have to construct, by straightforward thinking on the basis of very few factual observations, a plausible and self-consistent picture of a process which must have occurred before any of the forms which are known to us in the fossil record could have existed.

Forms, Observations, Origin Of Life, Self, Speculative, Thinking

All that glitters may not be gold, but at least it contains free electrons.

Free, Glitter, Glitters, Gold, May

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.

Advance, Characteristic, Essence, Long, Science, Seized

Scientific corporations might well become almost independent states and be enabled to undertake their largest experiments without consulting the outside world - a world which would be less and less able to judge what the experiments were about.

Enabled, Experiments, Independent, Judging, World, Would Be

As a scientist Miss [Rosalind] Franklin was distinguished by extreme clarity and perfection in everything she undertook. Her photographs are among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken.

Beautiful, Distinguished, Everything, Miss, Perfection, Taken

Her [Rosalind Franklin] devotion to research showed itself at its finest in the last months of her life. Although stricken with an illness which she knew would be fatal, she continued to work right up to the end.

Fatal, Months, Research, Rosalind, Science, Would Be

The problem is essentially that of communications to an army in action. After a rapid advance communications become disorganized, and there is a temporary halting until they are again in working order.

Action, Army, Communication, Halting, Order, Problem

Men will not be content to manufacture life: they will want to improve on it.

Content, Improve, Life, Manufacture, Men, Science

If science were communism, was it also not possible that communism could itself become a science?

Become, Communism, Ifs, Possible, Science

In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal.

Common Purpose, Consciously, Goal, Men, Superior

In fact, we will have to give up taking things for granted, even the apparently simple things. We have to learn to understand nature and not merely to observe it and endure what it imposes on us. Stupidity, from being an amiable individual defect, has become a social crime.

Fact, Give, Giving Up, Nature, Science, Simple

The full area of ignorance is not mapped. We are at present only exploring the fringes.

Area, Funny Inspirational, Ignorance, Learning, Mapped, Present

The central industry of modern civilisation, tending, because of its control over materials, to spread into and ultimately incorporate older industries such as mining, smelting, oil- refining, textiles, rubber, building, and even agriculture in respect to fertilizers and food processing.

Agriculture, Oil, Older, Tending, Textiles

Naturalism aimed at giving the primitive wishes full play but failed because these wishes are too primitive, too infantile, too inconsistent with themselves to be satisfied even by the greatest license.

Failed, Giving, Play, Wish

We will have to give up taking things for granted, even the apparently simple things.

Give, Giving Up, Simple, Taking, Taking Things For Granted, Things

The recognition of the art that informs all pure science need not mean the abandonment for it of all present art, rather it will mean the completion of the transformation of art that has already begun.

Already, Art, Mean, Needs, Pure

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