John Desmond Bernal: Science and Society

This meeting, held in the Limerick Institute of Technology, on Thursday 1 June 2006, was organised by the Munster Group of the Institute of Physics in Ireland to commemorate the life and work of John Desmond Bernal. Bernal, was born in Nenagh in 1901. Alan Mackay, who worked with Bernal at Birkbeck College coins the word 'Polytropic' to describe Bernal. He was active and hugely influential in a wide range of areas such as science, politics and society, and was instrumental in the creation of whole new areas of intellectual endeavour such as the 'science of science', molecular biology, and operations research. Andrew Brown's analogy for Bernal's mind is that 'it was like a diamond—beautifully structured, multifaceted and dazzling to behold'. In relation to Bernal, Helena Sheehan states that: 'His legacy is complex. All the more so because he was marxist in philosophy, communist in politics, polyamorous in sexuality.'. Like religion, these are areas that conventional scientists tend to shy away from or at the very least consign to very separate and often neglected 'compartments'. According to Sheehan, 'Bernal came to marxism seriously and intelligently. He found in its philosophical framework a structure in which he could live, think, create, pursue science, act politically and develop further. It opened him radically to the world, rather than closing him down or constricting him, as critics imply.'. And his contributions to science and to society are significant and enduring. Just two areas of 'his science' were addressed in some detail at this meeting. Martin Caffrey treats the area of structural biology in the context of modern developments but focusing on Bernal's role in its evolution. John Finney gives an account of Bernal's 'two bouts of activity' on the structure of water and as Bernal's last PhD student he gives unique insights on how Bernal worked and why he 'did science'. Bernal writes in response to a well wisher on his 70th birthday: 'I am sure that you share my hope that in the not too distant future science may come to be used exclusively for the benefit of all mankind.'. On the occasion of the unveiling of a plaque by the 'National Committee for Science and Engineering Commemorative Plaques' in honour of J D Bernal in his hometown of Nenagh, Martin Bernal (JD's son) wrote 'Now, 35 years after his death, John Desmond Bernal has received this ultimate accolade'. It is to be hoped that this meeting and these proceedings will help further an awak