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Home , Dorothy Hodgkin, Geoffrey Pyke, Hugh Huxley, Max Perutz, Vernon Ingram

PERSONAL NEWS NEWS (1914–2002)

Max Perutz died on 6 February 2002. He for in 1962 with structure is more relevant now than ever won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in his colleague and his first student John as we turn attention to the smallest 1962 after determining the molecular Kendrew for their work on the structure building blocks of life to make sense of structure of haemoglobin, the red of haemoglobin (Perutz) and the human genome and mechanisms of in blood that carries from the (Kendrew). He was one of the greatest disease.’ lungs to the body tissues. Perutz attemp- ambassadors of science, scientific method Perutz described his work thus: ted to understand the riddle of life in the and philosophy. Apart from being a great ‘Between September 1936 and May 1937 structure of and peptides. He scientist, he was a very kindly and Zwicky took 300 or more photographs in founded one of Britain’s most successful tolerant person who loved young people which he scanned between 5000 and research institutes, the Medical Research and was passionately committed towards 10,000 nebular images for new stars. Council Laboratory of Molecular Bio- societal problems, social justice and This led him to the discovery of one logy (LMB) in . intellectual honesty. His passion was to supernova, revealing the final dramatic Max Perutz was born in in communicate science to the public and moment in the death of a star. Zwicky 1914. He came from a family of textile he continuously lectured to scientists could say, like Ferdinand in The Tempest manufacturers and went to the Theresium both young and old, in schools, colleges, when he had to hew wood: School, named after Empress Maria universities and research institutes. On For some sports are painful Theresa. His parents wanted him to study his death, George Radda of the Medical and the labour law after school and later take over the Research Council said: ‘The world will Delight in them sets off; family business. A schoolmaster kindled some kinds of baseness his interest in chemistry, which he took Are nobly undergone, and up as a subject of study in the University most poor matters of Vienna. He specialized in organic Point to rich ends. This my mean task chemistry, and glaciology Would be as heavy to me as odious; but (because he was madly interested in The mistress which I serve skiing). With financial help from his quickens what’s dead father he went to the Cavendish Labo- And makes my labours pleasures. ratory, Cambridge and joined Peterhouse College. He became a research student of The heavens were Zwicky’s mistress, J. D. Bernal, whom Perutz described as and mine was haemoglobin, the protein ‘a restless genius, always searching for of the red blood cells. As part of my some of the very important things to do attempt to solve its structure, I took rather than the work he was doing at that several hundred X-ray diffraction pic- moment’. tures of haemoglobin crystals, each By then Bernal, along with Dorothy taking two hours’ exposure. I took some Crowfoot Hodgkin, had already taken X- of the pictures during World War II, ray diffraction photographs of the pro- when I had to spend nights in the teins, and . Bernal taught laboratory to be prepared to extinguish him that ‘the riddle of life was to be be mourning the loss of one of the 20th incendiary bombs in the event of a found in the structure of proteins and X- century’s scientific giants. Perutz’s German air raid. I used these nights to ray was the only way to achievements paved the way for others to get up every two hours, turn my crystal solve it’. unravel the shape of other large, complex by a few degrees, develop the exposed Perutz, on Bernal’s advice, first learnt proteins. His role in the development of films and insert a new pack of films into the techniques of X-ray crystallography the science of molecular was the cassette. When all the photographs analysis in the Department of Minera- pivotal, and led directly to the emergence had been taken, the real labour began. logy and Petrology, where he tried his of the modern biotechnology sector and Each of them contained several hundred hand on some silicate structures. After more efficient ways of creating and test- little black spots whose degree of black- this, he turned his attention to proteins ing new drugs. Perutz undertook his ness I had to measure by eye, one by one. and chose to study the structure of work at the Cavendish Laboratories in After six years of this labour, when the haemoglobin as it is a protein abundantly Cambridge, UK, before moving to the data were finally complete, a London found in the human body and was newly set-up Laboratory of Molecular firm processed them with a prehistoric, extremely easy to crystallize. Biology (LMB), which he chaired until mechanical punch card computer that Perutz was the first Chairman (1962– 1979. The LMB became a hotbed of res- produced an output of thousands of 79) of the Medical Research Council earch, producing nine Nobel laureates numbers. These numbers outlined not a Laboratory for , Cam- since the 1950s. The impact of Perutz’s picture of the structure I was trying to bridge. He was Reader of Chemistry at work remains a foundation on which solve, but a mathematical abstraction of the Davy Faraday Research Laboratory, science is being undertaken today. His it: the directions and lengths of all the 25 London (1956–67). Perutz shared the Nobel prize-winning work on protein million lines between the 5000 atoms in

586 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 5, 10 MARCH 2002 PERSONAL NEWS the haemoglobin molecule radiating from that Crick and Watson (with Maurice of Bijvoet, who had also suggested that a common origin. I scanned the maps Wilkins) won the prize for medicine – structures could be solved using the eagerly for interpretable features and was but in the early 1950s all these men were multi-isomorphous replacement method. elated when they seemed to tell me that unknown, achievements unrecognized, Perutz frankly admitted to her that he the molecule consists simply of bundles seeking how to use the techniques of had missed this in Bijvoet’s paper and he of parallel chains of atoms spaced apart physics and chemistry to understand the was roundly chided by at equal intervals.’ of biological matter. that ‘when a paper is written by a person ’Shortly after my results appeared in There were other remarkable people in like Bijvoet, you must read each word print, a new graduate student joined me. the group. studied under and sentence very very carefully’. Using As his first job, he performed a cal- Perutz using the primitive electron micro- the multiple isomorphous replacement culation which proved that no more than scopes then in existence. With brilliant method and also the anomalous scattering a small fraction of the haemoglobin insight, they decided that Huxley should method (also suggested by Bijvoet), molecule was made up of the bundles of study the muscle, an object ideally Perutz and his group could solve the parallel chains that I had persuaded matched to the powers of the micro- structure of haemoglobin. myself to see, and that my results, the scope. In his doctoral thesis in 1954, When was in Chennai fruits of years of tedious labour, pro- Huxley laid out the basic mechanism of I had invited him home for dinner and I vided no other clue to its structure. It was . And Perutz’s bio- asked how he had started protein crystal- a heartbreaking instance of patience chemical assistant, , was lography and molecular biology in Cam- wasted, an ever-present risk in scientific to discover the precise molecular nature bridge. He said: ‘Once a young man with research. That graduate student was of sickle-cell disease a couple of years balding head and high domed forehead , later famous for his part in later – a change of one in came in with a film in his hand. He said, the solution of the structure of DNA.’ haemoglobin which we now recognize as “I would like you to see the X-ray Perutz communicated ideas with extra- the consequence of a single mutation. photograph that I have taken of haemo- ordinary clarity and simplicity. Though The group first came into prominence globin”. It was an extraordinary photo- he retained a strong accent when speak- with the achievement of the two young graph with clear spots. He also told me ing, his written English was always ele- rebels – Crick and Watson’s analysis of that he had introduced a heavy atom of gant, compelling and stimulating. He DNA in 1953 revealed an exquisite struc- mercury into haemoglobin and crys- seemed to write with a golden pen. He ture whose fascinating implications caught tallized it and he was at present taking had a wonderful way of leading research, the imagination immediately. Meanwhile X-ray photographs. It looked as if the leaving his staff with the feeling they Perutz’s own research (and that of Ken- mercury haemoglobin was isomorphous were free to decide their own way drew) had got stuck. The methods of X- with ordinary haemoglobin. It was then I forward, while he created a vision of the ray crystallography had been used to made up my mind that we should go in long-term goals. And he had uncanny picture the molecular structure of many for protein crystallography in a very big insight into the potential of young resear- small molecules, up to the size of peni- way. So I met Edward Mellanby the chers seeking to work with him. cillin. Secretary of the Medical Research Coun- By the early 1950s he had drawn Perutz had a rather beautiful idea of cil and asked him “Mellanby, I want together an extraordinary group of people. introducing a heavy atom in haemoglo- 100,000 pounds for the next two years His senior colleague was , bin in order to see whether the methods for doing protein crystallography”. Mel- who like Perutz, was a trained in used in small molecule crystals would lanby asked me what would be the returns crystallography, but in personality utterly work. He was able to introduce mercury that the Medical Research Council would different. Kendrew was a precise orga- atoms in his haemoglobin crystal. This get. I told him, “Probably, one or two nizer, a gifted computer programmer, a was isomorphous replacement and from Nobel Prizes”. (I had underestimated, man who knew exactly where he was this he was able to phase reflections. there were 4 or 5 Nobel Prizes.) I was going and how to get there. His research Then he says, ‘As I developed my first sure that Max Perutz, the young man began by following Perutz’s, but by X-ray photograph of mercury haemo- who brought me the photograph would brilliant organization it later overtook globin, my mood altered between san- solve the structure of the haemoglobin as him (by working on myoglobin, the guine hopes of immediate success and he had done much of the work himself much smaller brother of haemoglobin). desperate forebodings of all possible (J. D. Bernal had gone on to advise the There was also a Ph D student with a causes of failure. I was jubilant when the ). When Mellanby said that I degree in physics, whose dazzling inte- diffraction spots appeared in exactly the would get the money, I found that we llect constantly darted from problem to same position as in the mercury-free were not even paying Max Perutz a problem. This man was Francis Crick. A protein, but with slightly altered inten- fellowship and he was being supported postdoctoral researcher, a 22-year-old sity, exactly as I had hoped’. by his father, a textile manufacturer from whiz-kid named Jim Watson, also turned With these two photographs, he felt Vienna. When Hitler invaded Austria, his up from Chicago. that he could determine phases of some family business collapsed and Perutz’s Only ten years later, Max Perutz and of the reflections. He mentioned this to financial support from his father was these three colleagues were all Nobel Dorothy Hodgkin, who was overjoyed. withdrawn. I also found that Perutz’s Prize winners – he shared the chemistry Many years later Perutz told me in parents were refugees and I talked to the prize with Kendrew for their structural London that Dorothy Hodgkin had refugee organization and arranged for analyses of haemoglobin (Perutz) and pointed out to him that now it was just a Perutz’s parents to come to Cambridge myoglobin (Kendrew), in the same year question of time if he used the other idea and for the first time in his life, Perutz’s

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 5, 10 MARCH 2002 587 PERSONAL NEWS father who had never done any manual bench or the X-ray tube, rather than describes a number of scientific contro- work became a lathe operator. I also sitting at his desk, set a good example versies surrounding his work, and how wrote to the Rockefeller Foundation and and raised morale. The board never they were resolved. One of these invol- got a fellowship for Perutz.’ directed the laboratory’s research but ved a mutant haemoglobin, analysed Perutz was indeed very grateful to tried to attract, or to keep, talented young incorrectly by its Japanese discoverers, Lawrence Bragg for having given him a people and gave them a free hand.’ suggesting a total conflict with his results. life-time assistantship in the Cavendish Some of the most important molecular Perutz and his collaborators identified Laboratory and also for saving the lives biologists of the world spent the forma- the mistake. In his words: ‘I worried that, of his parents and bringing them to tive periods of their earlier careers at this if our Japanese colleagues learned of this . institute. Perutz ensured that the labora- disproof of their findings, a poor student In the late 1950s, after Bragg’s retire- tory had a canteen where scientists could who blamed himself for their mistake ment, Perutz’s unit was based in a small discuss their problems over coffee, tea or might commit . To avoid such a asbestos hut in the car park outside the lunch. This canteen was supervised by tragedy, I invited them to publish a joint in Cambridge. As Perutz’s charming wife Gisela for more paper, a gesture which earned me their the research group continued to grow, than 20 years. lifelong friendship’. every empty room and disused shed on Meanwhile Perutz continued his own Max Perutz was a deeply humane man, the site (including the building which lifetime study of haemoglobin, ‘the mole- loved and admired by his colleagues, was originally Lord Rutherford’s stable) cular lung’, and showed how concerted who combined that gift with exceptional was converted into a laboratory for diffe- structural changes follow from its absorp- powers of analysis, planning and leader- rent facets of molecular biology. Long tion of oxygen, causing it to be either ship. His domed forehead suggested a before the Nobel Prizes, a report by fully oxygenated or fully reduced, and mighty brain, but his small fingers were Perutz convinced the Medical Research making it an ideal oxygen transporter. neat and dextrous. A robust and con- Council, then led by Harold Himsworth, This demonstrated a general principle, fident mountaineer, crazy about skiing, to build a large new laboratory for since many enzymes and other proteins he studied glacier flow early in his Perutz, Crick, Fred Sanger and others. exploit a similar ‘allosteric’ structural career, so as to work in the Alps. A back The new building, known as the Labo- change to switch a process on or off. By injury in middle life ended his skiing, but ratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), was collecting abnormal haemoglobins dis- he retained his love of the mountains. completed in 1962 on the new site of covered throughout the world, he opened His authority was derived from his Addenbrooke’s Hospital, at the edge of up ‘molecular pathology’, relating a struc- passionate belief in enabling others of Cambridge – just in time before over- tural abnormality to disease. Long before supreme talent to pursue curiosity-driven population of the Cavendish site led to mutant proteins could be created in the research, and from his own epic achieve- any serious dispute. laboratory, he had a large collection of ment. The politicians were struck by The LMB has been an outstanding and single-site mutants of haemoglobin. Perutz’s skill in explaining to laymen, in continuous success, a breeding-ground The Medical Research Council had an general terms, the most complex scien- for scientific achievement. In addition to inflexible rule that, when a Director of tific developments. Most were especially the four Nobel Prizes awarded in 1962, one of its institutions reached retirement moved when, in response to a direct which set the laboratory off to a splendid age, he must not continue to work in the question from Edmund Dell MP, he said: start, it has appeared in the Nobel lists same laboratory. Adroitly, Perutz announ- ‘Had I remained in Austria, I could never again and again: for the creation of ced that he had never been the Director, possibly have got so far. Being brutally monoclonal antibodies by Cesar Milstein and after retirement he would continue uprooted is a spur to achieve scientific and Georges Kohler with immediate appli- to pursue his research as usual. This goals. Cambridge made me’. cation to medicine, for ’s deep arrangement, warmly welcomed by the In Perutz’s room when Chairman of analysis of the organization of nucleic staff, allowed Perutz to continue as he the laboratory in the 1960s, and in the acids in chromatin and other types of pleased. In retirement he wrote a lot, small office which he was allocated and nucleic acid structure, John Walker’s including book reviews on a wide range to which he went daily after his retire- long study of a beautiful protein (ATP of topics from ’s view of ment, there hung the same sepia, slightly synthase) which acts as a rotary motor , and Fritz Harber’s fanatical tattered photograph in a frame – the powered by a biochemical energy source, obsession with poison gases, to the social looming presence of Lawrence Bragg. and above all by Fred Sanger’s second revolution caused by Carl Djerassi’s syn- Perutz would recall the story of how, as a Nobel Prize for inventing ways to find thesis of a contraceptive , as well young visiting research student at the the sequence of bases in nucleic acids. as several books of his own. He conti- Cavendish Laboratory, he took courage Perutz says: ‘I persuaded the Medical nued to travel, to collaborate with scien- into his hands, knocked on Bragg’s door, Research Council to appoint me Chair- tists from many nations. Above all, he and asked him to look at his X-ray man of a Governing Board, rather than as pursued the endless ramifications of his crystallography pictures of haemoglobin. Director. . . . This arrangement reserved deep understanding of haemoglobin and Perutz was committed deeply to his major decisions of scientific policy to the the many human diseases linked to it. He science till the very end. A few years board, and left their execution to me. . . . helped to design a useful drug to deliver ago, he wrote to me saying that he had The board met only rarely. . . . This oxygen to tumours and to damaged not yet found the crucial crystallographic worked smoothly and left me free to tissues. evidence for the cause of Huntington’s pursue my own research. Seeing the In his scientific autobiography Science disease. I understand that a few days Chairman standing at the laboratory is Not a Quiet Life (1997), Max Perutz before he died, he completed a manu-

588 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 5, 10 MARCH 2002 PERSONAL NEWS script of a paper on the causes of the refuelling island will collapse. The designed to mount crystals of haemo- Huntington’s disease and sent it to the only solution was to make ice shatter- globin. His achievements followed from Proceedings of the National Academy of proof. When Lord Mountbatten consul- a combination of several outstanding Sciences, USA. (Obviously he had got ted J. D. Bernal, his chief advisor, he qualities, not all intellectual. His irresis- the crucial evidence he was looking for.) said the only person who knew intri- tible powers of gentle persuasion brought But this was also the man who could cacies of the structure of ice was Max him long-term support and affection contribute a major essay, ‘By What Right Perutz, because of his craze for skiing. from all those he met. He also excused Do We Invoke Human Rights?’, to the So Perutz was summoned by the Allied himself and said that he would not be Proceedings of the American Philoso- Commander to attempt to make ice able to be present at my after-dinner- phical Society in June 1996. His opening shatter-proof. In 1942 he was abruptly speech. reveals a lot about Perutz: summoned to London at the request of When I came back to India, I wrote ’Scientists the world over are united Lord Mountbatten. told him a letter thanking him for speaking at by a common purpose, ideally to dis- him advice was needed on tunnelling the seminar and asked him whether he cover Nature’s secrets and put them to glaciers and on low-cost ways of trans- had any special secret in the organization use for human benefit. Albert Szent- forming ice – into a material tough enough of the LMB, such that so much excellent Gyorgyi, the discoverer of C, has to serve as armour which does not shatter world-class work could be produced said, “I feel closer to a Chinese colleague when hit by a bullet. Perutz set-up a there. He sent me a copy of a book that than to my own postman”.’ refrigerated laboratory in the caverns he had written I Wish I’d Made You When a scientist who has committed beneath the Smithfield meat market and Angry Earlier (Cold Spring Harbor no crime is imprisoned, we feel like the leading a team clad in airmen’s heated Laboratory Press) and he most graciously minister freeing the prisoners when suits, produced an ice-fibre composite he inscribed it to me with the words, ‘To he says, ‘Es sucht der Bruder seine appropriately called , which when Siv, with kind regards and best wishes, Bruder’ – he or she is one of our brothers frozen was tougher than steel. Fortu- Max’. This is one of the most remarkable or sisters, and we feel a duty to appeal nately, by that time American planes had books written by a scientist that I have for his or her release. In doing so, we are become better and could cross the Atlantic ever read. He convinces us in this book now on strong legal grounds established in one hop and the whole idea was that science is a passionate enterprise by the United Nations Universal Decla- dropped. Pyke was very enthusiastic and and the pursuit of knowledge a sortie ration of Human Rights of 1948 and the wanted to show the American command into the unknown. There can be no more conventions and covenants that followed the qualities of pykrete. Unfortunately, persuasive advocate than Perutz in this it. They have the force of international Perutz could not go to America as it was regard. These pages are filled with por- law and are backed by courts and com- reported that he had liberal views and traits of twentieth-century giants, Pauling, missions to which individuals can appeal. was a very close friend of avowed Meitner, Bragg, Haber, Medawar, Szilard, Perutz in the last decade, through communists. The communist was J. D. Jacob, Krebs, and others. There are enter- contact with people in public office and Bernal who had recommended Perutz do taining glimpses of Perutz’s own long many letters to the broadsheet press, this job. Many years later when I was in and exceptional life: his flight from campaigned for international law to be Brooklyn, I heard that Pyke put up a wall Vienna in the thirties and internment in upheld in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Gulf and of pykrete and invited a large number of Britain as an enemy alien in World War latterly Afghanistan. He was deeply inte- senior naval and army officers, to shoot II, rescue from the sea after a U-boat rested in military matters and was very at the pykrete wall. The bullets reboun- attack, involvement in a scheme to make well-informed. This may be partly because ded and one wounded the shoulder of a ships of ice for refuelling aircraft in the his first research student, a then young General. North Atlantic, and after the war his Wing Commander came into his office in Max Perutz gave a very beautiful intense, ten-year struggle to perfect a uniform and asked if he could work for lecture when the Collected Works of new way of understanding protein struc- him. This was John Kendrew, with whom Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, published ture and function. Perutz is an eloquent he was to share a Nobel Prize sixteen by the Indian Academy of Sciences, spokesman for humanitarian causes, and years later. Bangalore, was released by the British his observations on abortion issues, I will give you an example of how Crystallographic Association at the Royal nuclear fuel reprocessing and human Perutz, whenever he undertook a job did Society, London. At the end of the rights reflect a life-long concern for both it extraordinarily well. When America lecture he came and met me and congra- social justice and scientific integrity. joined the war, American planes could tulated me and said that the Indian It was in this book that I read his not cross Atlantic at one go. So an idea Academy of Sciences and I had done a famous essay on entitled was proposed by Geoffrey Pyke, one of great service to crystallography by pub- ‘The friend or foe of mankind’, which the minor scientific advisors of Lord lishing the above mentioned book, as her provoked me to write an article on Haber Mountbatten, who was the Commander papers are models of how crystallo- in Current Science. I think the very first of the joint operation, that an island of graphy should be done. I felt greatly sentence of the book gave me the answer ice carved from the Arctic could be set- flattered. I noticed that he spoke English to the question I asked. up in the middle of the Atlantic, which with an European continental accent, ’Every now and then I receive visits could be used for fuelling the planes. which he had not shed even after three from earnest men and women armed with Unfortunately a big lacuna was found, decades of being in England. I also questionnaires and tape recorders who because if the ice is bombarded by a noticed that he had beautiful hands like want to find out what made the Labo- torpedo or by bombs, it will shatter and an artist, as though they had been ratory of Molecular Biology in Cam-

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 5, 10 MARCH 2002 589 PERSONAL NEWS bridge (where I work) so remarkably makes them continue? Often it is addic- As I said before, Perutz’s command of creative. They come from the social tion to puzzle-solving and ambition to be English was extraordinary. When Dorothy sciences and seek their Holy Grail in recognized by their peers. Hodgkin died, he wrote a memorable and interdisciplinary organization. I feel temp- ’Science has changed the world, but touching obituary. ‘Dorothy Hodgkin’s ted to draw their attention to 15th cen- who changed it rarely uncanny knack of solving difficult struc- tury Florence with a population of less foresaw the revolutions to which their tures came from a combination of manual than 50,000, from which emerged Leo- research would lead. Oswald Avery never skill, mathematical ability and profound nardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, set out to discover what genes are made knowledge of crystallography and che- Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Alberti, and other of; Hahn and Meitner never intended to mistry. It often led her and her alone to great artists. Had my questioners inves- split the uranium nucleus; Watson and recognize what the initially blurred maps tigated whether the rulers of Florence Crick were taken by surprise when their emerging from X-ray analysis were try- had created an interdisciplinary organi- atomic model of the DNA told them how ing to tell. She will be remembered as a zation of painters, sculptors, architects, the genetic information replicates itself; great chemist, a saintly, gentle and tole- and poets to bring to life this flowering and when Jean Wiggle and Werner Arbor rant lover of people and a devoted pro- of great art? Or had they found out how wondered why a bacterial virus infected tagonist of peace.’ the 19th century municipality of Paris one strain of coli bacteria and not another, Max Perutz’s description of his great had planned Impressionism, so as to they could not foresee that some 40 years friend Dorothy Hodgkin fits himself produce Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, on, their enquiry would lead to the perfectly. Toulouse-Lautrec, and Seurat? My ques- cloning of a sheep named Dolly. Like When Max Perutz, one of the greatest tions are not as absurd as they seem, children out on a treasure hunt, scientists scientists of the twentieth century, died, because creativity in science, as in the do not know what they will find. his demise attracted a lot of media arts, cannot be organized. It arises spon- ’According to Paul Ehrlich, the father attention and many tributes were paid to taneously from individual talent. Well-run of immunology, scientists need the four him. This obituary has been written cull- laboratories can foster it, but hierarchical Gs: Geschick, Geduld, Geld, und Gluck ing information and quoting extensively organization, inflexible bureaucratic rules (skill, patience, money and luck). Patience from these tributes. I consider it a great and mountains of futile paperwork can may or may not reap its own reward.’ privilege that I have had the honour of kill it. Discoveries cannot be planned; When Perutz was asked, if he were on having known Max Perutz during my they pop up, like Puck, in unexpected a lonely desert island, what he would lifetime and that he had written so many corners. have liked to have, he said that he would friendly and affectionate letters to me. ’In the past, most scientists were like to have Darwin’s book Origin of poorly paid; only few became famous Species and other works and if possible a S. RAMASESHAN and even fewer rich. One of the char- pair of skis. ‘A pair of skis?’ ‘Yes. One acters in Fred Hoyle’s novel The Black never knows whether it will snow or Raman Research Institute, Cloud remarks that scientists are always not on this desert island’ – the eternal Bangalore 560 080, India wrong, yet they always go on. What optimist. e-mail: [email protected]

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