Portraits IN SCIENCE Compiled and introduced by ANN MOYAL SCIENCE IS ONE of the most important intellectual and cultural forces of the twentieth century, yet surprisingly little is known in Australia of the lives of this country's key scientific men and women and of the contributions they have made to enlarging the boundaries of scientific knowledge. Among these interviews compiled and introduced by Ann Moyal there are two physicists, Sir Mark Oliphant and Professor Harry Messel, and three medical researchers in immunology, human genetics and the brain—Sir Gustav Nossal, Professor Susan Serjeantson and Professor Peter Bishop. Others interviewed include an animal geneticist, Dr Helen Newton Turner; ecologist, biologist and Chief Scientist, Professor Ralph Slatyer; Dr Elizabeth Truswell, a palynologist; Dr Paul Wild, a radiophysicist; and Professor Ted Ringwood, physicist. There are also lively interviews with science communicators, Robyn Williams and Dr Michael Gore. Together the group encompasses the innovative application of scientific knowledge since the 1930s; the foundation of scientific research institutions; high-level Australian representation in international science; and policy development and public education in science. They reveal their formative influences, diversely rewarding experiences and outstanding commitment to their demanding and challenging work. This is an impressive record offering evocative reflections and inspiring achievements. Cover: 'The Great Australian Desert by Night (with the world famous giant telescope at Parkes, NSW)', tapestry by Mathieu Mategot in the National Library of Australia. Portraits IN SCIENCE Compiled and introduced by ANN MOYAL Portraits IN SCIENCE Compiled and introduced by ANN MOYAL National Library of Australia Published with the assistance of the Morris West Trust Fund © National Library of Australia 1994 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Portraits in science. ISBN 0 642 106169. 1. Scientists—Australia—Interviews. 2. Scientists—Australia- Biography. I. Moyal, Ann. II. National Library of Australia. 509.22 Publishing Manager: Margaret Chalker Publisher's editor: Margaret Ruhfus Printed by: Ligare Pty Ltd, Sydney Foreword Since the late 1950s, the National Library of Australia has built one of Australia's great institutional collections of oral history recordings comprising detailed interviews with distinguished Australian men and women in a variety of occupations and disciplines. In recent years, through its publishing program, the Library has begun to share the wealth of this collection with a wider community of Australians. So far, two books have been produced—Self Portraits and Artists' Portraits in which David Foster and Geoffrey Dutton respectively edited for publication a selection of interviews first with Australian writers and secondly with artists, drawing mainly on the work done over a twenty-five year period by the late Hazel de Berg, one of this country's pioneer oral historians. With the success of these two publications, a third has now been compiled in which Ann Moyal, a distinguished historian of science, uses the discipline of oral history to offer a perspective on the development of Australian science through interviews with a cross-section of men and women who have won high achievement and recognition in their various scientific disciplines. Unlike the two previous books which drew on an existing body of material, Ann Moyal has constructed her book largely from interviews which she herself conducted with the subjects of her choice. The interviews of course vary in length and quality and have been edited for publication by Ann Moyal. The complete recordings and supporting transcripts are held in the Library's oral history collection. In a publishing program which has largely been concerned with aspects of the humanities in Australia, the National Library is pleased to give recognition to the singular contribution which scientific endeavour has made to the national life and which has brought international recognition to Australia. Ann Moyal, recently a Harold White Fellow at the National Library, has brought keen and incisive judgment to bear in offering readers a sense both of the individual careers she has explored and of the nature and variety of Australian science itself. Warren Horton Director- General iii Contents Foreword v Speaking of Science: An Introduction 1 Acknowledgments 20 Sir Mark Oliphant 21 Dr (John) Paul Wild 39 Dr Helen Newton Turner 53 Sir Gustav Nossal 65 Dr Elizabeth Truswell 83 Professor Harry Messel 98 Professor Peter Bishop 108 Professor Alfred Edward (Ted) Ringwood 122 Professor Ralph Slatyer 135 Professor Susan Serjeantson 154 Robyn Williams 171 Dr Michael Gore 183 Notes 200 V Speaking of Science: An Introduction Science is one of the most important intellectual and cultural forces of the twentieth century. Yet surprisingly little is known in Australia of the lives of this country's key scientific men and women and of the contributions they have made to enlarging the boundaries of scientific knowledge and to the application of science to human development. It is curious that the scientist, despite a key role in peace and war, is often seen as an obscure or exaggerated figure—the laboratory experimenter in a long white coat, the absent-minded professor, even the wild-haired fictional 'Dr Who', intrepid, often boring, and well outside the bounds of everyday life. Stop anyone in the street and ask them to name one or two famous Australian scientists and you will almost certainly draw a blank. Ask for a sporting figure and the names will flow. Yet science is all around us and those who work at its frontiers have fascinating stories to tell. It is the link between the probing and creative mind and the physical and natural world that has made the scientific and technological civilisation in which we live. Significantly, Australia moved into a scientific age when Cook and the Endeavours naturalist, Joseph Banks, traversed the eastern coastline and carried their rich collections of specimens and scientific data back to Britain. Across two centuries, scientists in this unique 'fifth continent' have built on scientific knowledge and won considerable prominence for Australia on the world's scientific stage.1 In the last decades of this century, science and its applications have assumed greater importance for this country than ever before. This collection of oral history interviews with leading Australian scientists and science communicators has been fashioned with this point in view. In the last fifty years Australia has established special excellence in a number of scientific fields. At the forefront of these are radiophysics, neurophysiology, medical research in immunology and molecular genetics, geology, various areas of physics, agricultural genetics and ecological research. 1 PORTRAITS IN SCIENCE There are, of course, many more. In bringing together an introductory set of interviews with a group of Australian scientists who have leading reputations in these fields, the aim is to convey something of the variety, excitement and accomplishment of science, to explore its work and processes, reveal its challenges and perceive its relationship to society. In so doing, it is hoped to shed light on a crucial area of Australian culture and through the intimate reflection of individuals, open an enlightening view to readers, to students of science and society, other scientists and to young Australians who may wish to contemplate a scientific career. Oral history offers an invaluable route. The oral record is now widely accepted as a significant primary means of recovering the past.2 In the arena of science, its value is evident. Few scientists are given to autobiographical writing;3 few keep personal diaries and a significant part of the history of the last fifty years of science in Australia is in the memory of living scientists. Since a scientist's work is often complex involving unfamiliar terms, explanation afforded by oral discussion can assist in conveying and clarifying many themes. These informal stories reflect Australian science in the second half of this century. Little enough has yet been written by historians on these important years. The period, however, was one of the blossoming of Australian science. New institutions were established, major organisations reshaped, while World War II—'the Physicists' War'—gave impetus to the national growth of our scientific training and education, scientific infrastructure and research in both the physical and biological sciences. Retrieving history through the recollections of individuals also offers other distinctive benefits. It can yield new and often elusive material about both a key scientist's role and the collective social system of science. On a personal level, it offers a persuasive and illuminating way of perceiving formative influences, clarifying education and training, revealing mentors, defining scientific networks and identifying the creative thrusts and innovations of individuals who, throughout their lives, are involved in attempts to explain the workings of the universe and to devise models and applications for the extension of scientific knowledge and its use. In its broader context, the oral records of scientists furnish insights into the sociology, institutions and political dimensions of science. How for example, do creative scientists act towards each other? Do they have individual, collaborative or team approaches? What are their reactions