HISTORICAL THESAURUS BETA-BLOCKERS TheAvenue magazine for alumni and friends of the University of Glasgow Issue 63 January 2018 THERMODYNAMICS NEON ECONOMIC THEORY ISOTOPES RADIO PULSARS XENON A CATALYST FOR CHANGE KRYPTON TELEVISION STEAM POWER ANTISEPTIC SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT STATINS ULTRASOUND glasgow.ac.uk/avenue 1 TH SOMETHING TO In this issue AN 8 CHEMICAL REACTION 2 OUTSTANDING Chemistry's home is getting a makeover and hopes are high that the past will ACHIEVEMENT repeat itself he University has risen eight places to EVERY ENGLISH WORD EVER SPOKEN 4 80th in the Times Higher Education World T A remarkable story of academic dedication University Rankings released in September. and perseverance Phil Baty, editor of the rankings, said: “For sm:)eABOUT Glasgow to make 80th in the world is an TURNING DREAMS INTO REALITY 6 outstanding achievement. A rise of eight Students who mean business places within the top 100 of this list is or the second year in a row dentistry at Glasgow has been ranked top in the UK by particularly impressive given the intensifying FThe Times & The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018. Two other subjects – animal INTRODUCING OUR YOUNG global competition. You have to run fast just to science and education – are also ranked top in the UK, and the subjects of medicine, nursing ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR 10 stand still in these rankings.” and veterinary medicine have all been placed second in the UK in the same guide. Read the inspiring story of MindMate founders Susanne Mitschke and Patrick Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak, Vice-Principal and head of the College of Medical, Renner Veterinary & Life Sciences, said: “I am extremely proud of these new league table results for the areas of medicine, dentistry, nursing and veterinary medicine – the college’s four ALUMNI NEWS & EVENTS 12 aces. Having all four of these subjects in the top 1 or 2 position in the UK is testament to the Reunions, clubs and personal news “ IT IS THE QUALITY exemplary work of colleagues across all of our schools and research institutes, and also proof OF OUR TEACHING, that our innovative college strategy fosters both world-leading teaching and research.” GENERAL COUNCIL 18 IT IS THE CITATION A report to the General Council FOR OUR RESEARCH, IT’S OUR INTERNATIONAL WHAT'S ON AT THE UNIVERSITY 21 OUTLOOK.” Collections, exhibitions and events PRINCIPAL PROFESSOR SIR ANTON MUSCATELLI CORRECTION In the previous issue of Avenue our feature on inspiring women should have stated that Professor Rona Mackie became the first woman Professor of TOP 50 SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY Dermatology in the UK in 1978. KEEP IN TOUCH Glasgow is among the top 50 universities All addresses are Development & Alumni, 2 The in the world for studying law. The University Square, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ. is ranked 48th in the THE World University Deadline for content: 15 March 2018 Rankings, testament to the quality of OF THE YEAR Alumni news, events, reunion notices and reports the School of Law’s teaching, student T: +44 (0)141 330 4951 experience and research. E: [email protected] he University is celebrating being named Scottish University Tof the Year by The Times & The Sunday Times Good University Changes of address and obituaries Guide 2018. T: +44 (0)141 330 7146 The University’s Dental School has successfully created the world’s biggest smile E: [email protected] Alastair McCall, editor of the guide, said: “The University of Glasgow during an event at the SEC in Glasgow in June. University staff, dental alumni, Letters to the Editor is going places. It is in the midst of one of the biggest capital spends schoolchildren and teachers from the Glasgow area were invited to form the lips and E: [email protected] for a Scottish university, with the redevelopment of the former teeth of a giant smile to highlight the importance of good oral health and, with more Western Infirmary site, which will reshape the city’s West End. It is than 750 participants, they set a Guinness World Record. Editorial Board: Cathy Bell, Siobhan Convery, Ailie a great example of the transformational role that can be played by Ferrari, Amber Higgins, Emily Howie, Gerry Law, universities, not just in individual lives but in communities more widely John Marsh, Rachel Sandison, Sarah Spence and in regional and national domains. It recruits internationally based Editor: Susan Howie RISING on its outstanding reputation for research, and it has avoided the Alumni section editor: Jennifer Baird pitfalls of others in Scotland in being able to provide a student-centric MAKING WAVES Online editor: Lynne Maclagan TO 70 undergraduate experience alongside that.” Art director and designer: Darren Jewell-Irons Gravitational wave physicists at Glasgow are celebrating the Produced and designed by External Relations, Arts and humanities The University jumped nine places in the national league table to feature announcement of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics which goes to Rainer University of Glasgow. Photography by the University subjects at Glasgow have inside the UK’s top 20 and scored gains in six of the nine performance Weiss (MIT), Barry C Barish (Caltech) and Kip S Thorne (Caltech). Photographic Unit. Additional photography: CASE, jumped eight places to indicators used to rank universities in the annual undergraduate guide. The three played a key role in the historic first direct detection of The Hunterian, Reuben Paris, Shutterstock.com, be placed 70th in the gravitational waves in September 2015, which established the new Eivind Yggeseth, University Archives. THE World University field of gravitational wave astronomy. Researchers from the University Printed by J Thomson. Rankings. The subjects are part of the international LIGO Scientific collaboration, and with their covered include history, colleagues around the globe have made significant contributions to ISSN 0950-7167 philosophy, theology, CHALLENGING, EXCITING, UNFORGETTABLE the research initiated by the three new Nobel laureates. In the scientific Views expressed are not necessarily those of the languages, literature & background to the Nobel Prize published by the Nobel Committee University or the editors. All rights reserved. Nothing may linguistics, archaeology We asked our students to describe Glasgow, Scottish University of the for Physics, the pioneering work by two Glasgow alumni and staff be reproduced without written permission from the Editor. Year, in three words. See glasgow.ac.uk/avenue. © University of Glasgow November 2017 and performing arts. members – Professors Ron Drever and James Hough – was noted. The University of Glasgow charity number SC004401 2 3 FROM INVESTMENT 1936 A public appeal was launched by Principal Hector Hetherington for a large Chemistry Institute complex TO INNOVATION of four new specialist departmental buildings for organic, medical, physical and inorganic chemistry. On completion it was the largest chemistry teaching As part of the University’s £1bn campus redevelopment programme, and research building in Britain. Notable innovative the Joseph Black Building – home to the School of Chemistry – is features included separate linked buildings for organic and physical chemistry, a 400-seat lecture theatre, receiving a £35m makeover. Over the centuries investment in chemistry a reading room, broad corridors, high ceilings and at Glasgow has led to groundbreaking discoveries and world-changing special foundations to eliminate vibrations. research. Current head of the school Professor Graeme Cooke is well aware of the department’s past achievements and expects that this 1747 latest investment in chemistry will be a catalyst for even greater things For the sum of £52, William Cullen established to come. “By creating a modern environment which is sympathetic to the first lectureship in chemistry at Glasgow. the historic building, open-plan laboratories and world-class facilities, It appears that his lectures and practical we will encourage and strengthen multidisciplinary activities and demonstrations were very popular, though he was later to complain that he had expended a much collaboration throughout the school and with our industrial partners.” greater sum himself “… in purchasing cucurbits, boltheads and a great many other instruments.” 1904 Pictured: a model The first Lecturer in Physical Chemistry, Frederick Soddy, 1762 Newcomen steam was appointed in 1904. Fresh from fundamental research engine that James with Ernest Rutherford and Glasgow graduate William Cullen was succeeded by Watt tried to repair in 1763. It was his failure Ramsay (Nobel Prize, 1904), Soddy carried out a demanding his pupil Joseph Black to coax the machine series of experiments at Glasgow which established the whose research on latent back to optimum relationship between atomic number and Periodic Table heat, shared with his good capacity that sparked position. Soddy’s researches led him to make the imaginative friend James Watt in 1762, his invention of the separate condenser, suggestion that elements with different atomic weights that led to the development of the component that did not seem separable by chemical means were indeed the steam engine that drove led to rapid expansion chemically identical. He proposed the name isotope, 1818 the Industrial Revolution. in British industry. meaning equal place (in the Periodic Table), and won the Black, who is also credited Nobel Prize for this work in 1922. The Regius Chair of Chemistry was founded by King with discovering carbon Caesium iodide 1957 George III, with Thomas Thomson appointed in 1818 dioxide, later complained crystals glowing in the radioactivity emitted Glasgow graduate as the first professor. He was a pioneer in emphasising that his lab was small, dark by one of Soddy’s the importance of laboratory work in teaching and unfit for teaching and surviving samples. Alexander R Todd (Lord chemistry and has been called the first teacher of secured £500 to build a Todd) received the Nobel practical chemistry in a British university. new one. Prize in Chemistry for “his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes”.