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John Desmond Bernal (; 10 May 1901 – 15 September 1971) was an Irish scientist who pioneered the use of
X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...
in
molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...
. He published extensively on the
history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
. In addition, Bernal wrote popular books on science and society. He was a
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
activist and a member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
(CPGB).


Education and early life

His family was Irish, of mixed Spanish, Portuguese and Italian
Sephardic Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
origin on his father's side (his grandfather Jacob Genese, properly Ginesi, had adopted the family name Bernal of his paternal grandmother around 1837). His father Samuel Bernal had been raised as a
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in
Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2 ...
and after graduating from Albert Agricultural College spent 14 years in Australia before returning to Tipperary to buy a farm, ''Brookwatson'', near Nenagh where Bernal was brought up. His American mother, née Elizabeth Miller, whose mother was from Antrim, was a graduate of
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
and a journalist and had converted to Catholicism. Elizabeth was raised Protestant and would send John to a Protestant school in his youth. Bernal was educated in England first for one term at
Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. The school has been fully co-educational sinc ...
, which he hated and so was moved to
Bedford School :''Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Girls' School, Bedford High School, Bedford Modern School, Old Bedford School in Bedford, Texas or Bedford Academy in Bedford, Nova Scotia.'' Bedford School is a public school (English ind ...
at the age of 13. There, according to Goldsmith from 1914 to 1919 and found it "extremely unpleasant" and most of his fellow students "bored him", but his younger brother Kevin, who was also there, was "some consolation", and Brown claims that "he seemed to adjust easily to life" there. In 1919, he went to
Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican m ...
with a scholarship. At Cambridge, Bernal read both mathematics and science for a
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree in 1922, which he followed by another year of
natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
s. He taught himself the theory of
space group In mathematics, physics and chemistry, a space group is the symmetry group of an object in space, usually in three dimensions. The elements of a space group (its symmetry operations) are the rigid transformations of an object that leave it uncha ...
s, including the
quaternion In mathematics, the quaternion number system extends the complex numbers. Quaternions were first described by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. Hamilton defined a quater ...
method, which became the mathematical basis of a lengthy paper on
crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of the ordered arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from the intrinsic nature of the constituent particles to form symmetric pattern ...
for which he won a joint prize with Ronald G.W. Norrish in his third year. At Cambridge, he also became known as "Sage", a nickname given to him about 1920 by a young woman working in
Charles Kay Ogden Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts, and philo ...
's Bookshop at the corner of Bridge Street.


Career and research

After his graduation, Bernal began research under
William Henry Bragg Sir William Henry Bragg (2 July 1862 – 12 March 1942) was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquelyThis is still a unique accomplishment, because no other parent-child combination has yet shared a Nob ...
at the Davy Faraday Laboratory at the
Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...
in London. In 1924 he determined the structure of
graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on la ...
(the Bernal stacking describes the registry of two graphite planes) and also did work on the crystal structure of
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...
. His strength was in analysis as much as experimental method, and his mathematical and practical treatment of determining crystal structure was widely studied, but he also developed an X-ray spectro-
goniometer A goniometer is an instrument that either measures an angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position. The term goniometry derives from two Greek words, γωνία (''gōnía'') 'angle' and μέτρον (''métron'') ' m ...
. In 1927, he was appointed as the first lecturer in Structural Crystallography at Cambridge, becoming the assistant director of the
Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
in 1934. There, he started applying his crystallographic techniques to organic molecules, starting with
oestrin Estrone (E1), sold under the brand names Estragyn, Kestrin, and Theelin among many others, is an estrogen medication and natural product, naturally occurring steroid hormone which has been used in menopausal hormone therapy and for other indica ...
and sterol compounds including
cholesterol Cholesterol is any of a class of certain organic molecules called lipids. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid. Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell memb ...
in 1929, forcing a radical change of thinking among sterol chemists. While at Cambridge, he analysed vitamin B1 (1933),
pepsin Pepsin is an endopeptidase that breaks down proteins into smaller peptides. It is produced in the gastric chief cells of the stomach lining and is one of the main digestive enzymes in the digestive systems of humans and many other animals, w ...
(1934), vitamin D2 (1935), the
sterols Sterol is an organic compound with formula , whose molecule is derived from that of gonane by replacement of a hydrogen atom in position 3 by a hydroxyl group. It is therefore an alcohol of gonane. More generally, any compounds that contain the gon ...
(1936) and the tobacco mosaic virus (1937). He also worked on the structure of liquid water, showing the boomerang shape of its molecule (1933). It was in Bernal's research group that after a year working with Tiny Powell at Oxford,
Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...
continued her early research career. Together, in 1934, they took the first X-ray photographs of hydrated
protein crystal Protein crystallization is the process of formation of a regular array of individual protein molecules stabilized by crystal contacts. If the crystal is sufficiently ordered, it will diffract. Some proteins naturally form crystalline arrays, li ...
s using the trick of bathing the crystals in their mother liquor, giving one of the first glimpses of the world of molecular structure that underlies living things.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref>
Max Perutz Max Ferdinand Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002) was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went ...
arrived as a student from
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
in 1936 and started the work on
haemoglobin Hemoglobin (haemoglobin BrE) (from the Greek word αἷμα, ''haîma'' 'blood' + Latin ''globus'' 'ball, sphere' + ''-in'') (), abbreviated Hb or Hgb, is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein present in red blood cells (erythrocyte ...
that would occupy him most of his career. However, Bernal was refused fellowships at Emmanuel and Christ's and tenure by
Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...
, who disliked him, and in 1937, Bernal became Professor of
Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
at Birkbeck College, University of London, a department that had been brought to the first rank by
Patrick Blackett Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett (18 November 1897 – 13 July 1974) was a British experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers, cosmic rays, and paleomagnetism, winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. ...
. The same year, he was elected as a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...
. After World War II, he established Birkbeck's Biomolecular Research Laboratory in two Georgian houses in Torrington Square with 15 researchers.
Aaron Klug Sir Aaron Klug (11 August 1926 – 20 November 2018) was a British biophysicist and chemist. He was a winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of bi ...
worked on
ribonuclease Ribonuclease (commonly abbreviated RNase) is a type of nuclease that catalyzes the degradation of RNA into smaller components. Ribonucleases can be divided into endoribonucleases and exoribonucleases, and comprise several sub-classes within the ...
, and Andrew Donald Booth developed some of the earliest computers to help with the computation.
Rosalind Franklin Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 192016 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, ...
joined from King's College and did pioneering work on viruses until her early death in 1958. His Guthrie lecture of 1947 concentrated on proteins as the basis of life, but it was Perutz, still at Cambridge, who picked up
Linus Pauling Linus Carl Pauling (; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topi ...
's leads. In the early 1960s, Bernal returned to the subject of the origin of life, analysing meteorites for evidence of complex molecules, and to the topic of the structure of liquids, which he talked about in his
Bakerian lecture The Bakerian Medal is one of the premier medals of the Royal Society that recognizes exceptional and outstanding science. It comes with a medal award and a prize lecture. The medalist is required to give a lecture on any topic related to physical ...
in 1962.The structure of liquids. Bakerian Lecture. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 280, 299-322.


Ministry of Home Security

In the early 1930s, Bernal had been arguing for peace, but that changed after the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
started. With the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
in 1939, Bernal joined the Ministry of Home Security, where he brought in Solly Zuckerman to carry out the first proper analyses of the effects of enemy bombing and of explosions on animals and people. Their subsequent analysis of the effects of bombs on
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
and
Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south- ...
showed that city bombing produced little disruption and production was affected only by direct hits on factories. A supper for scientists organised by the
Tots and Quots The Tots and Quots was a dining club for scientists and other intellectuals that was based in London and was active from 1931 to 1946. It was founded by Solly Zuckerman and went through two periods of activity, one from 1931 to 1933, and a second pe ...
in
Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was deve ...
generated a multi-author book ''Science in War'' produced in a month by
Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fict ...
, one of the guests, arguing that science should be applied in every part of the war effort. From 1942, he and Zuckerman served as scientific advisers to
Lord Louis Mountbatten Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of German ...
, the Chief of Combined Operations. Bernal was able to argue on both sides of
Project Habbakuk Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies) was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid- Atlantic, which we ...
, Geoffrey Pyke's proposal to build huge aircraft landing platforms in the North Atlantic made of ice. He rescued Max Perutz from internment, getting him to perform experiments on ice related to Habbakuk in a meat store freezer below Smithfield Meat Market. This project indirectly marked his divergence from Zuckerman, when he was recalled from a joint tour of the Middle East investigating the co-operation of army and air force, but the tour established Zuckerman's reputation as a military scientist.


Operation Overlord and D-Day

After the disaster of the
Dieppe raid Operation Jubilee or the Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France, during the Second World War. Over 6,050 infantry, predominantly Canadian, s ...
, Bernal was determined that its mistakes not be repeated in
Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...
. He demonstrated the advantages of an artificial harbour to the participants of the Quebec Conference in 1943, as the only British scientist present. On 3 June 1944, he was commissioned a temporary lieutenant (Special Branch) in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). His main contribution to the
Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
was the detailed mapping of the beaches, which had to be done without attracting any German attention. His knowledge of the area stemmed from research in English libraries, personal experience (he had visited Arromanches on previous holidays) and aerial surveys. At Bernal's memorial service, Zuckerman downplayed Bernal's part in the Normandy landings and said that he was not cleared for the highest levels of security. Given Bernal's Marxist and pro-Soviet sympathies, it is perhaps remarkable that there has never been any suggestion that he fed any information in that direction. However, Brown provides evidence of Bernal's contributions to the preparation and the success of the invasion. After assisting in the preparations for
D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
with work on the structure of the proposed landing sites and the
bocage Bocage (, ) is a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture characteristic of parts of Northern France, Southern England, Ireland, the Netherlands and Northern Germany, in regions where pastoral farming is the dominant land use. ''Bocage'' may a ...
countryside beyond, Bernal landed, according to C. P. Snow, at
Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
on the afternoon of D-Day+1 in the uniform of an Instructor-Lieutenant
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...
to record the effectiveness of the plans. He also assisted boats floundering on the rocks by using his knowledge of the area but said, "I committed the frightful solecism of not knowing which was
port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...
and which side was
starboard Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which ar ...
".


Publications

His 1929 work ''The World, the Flesh and the Devil'' has been called "the most brilliant attempt at scientific prediction ever made" by
Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...
. It is famous for having been the first to propose the so-called Bernal sphere, a type of
space habitat A space habitat (also called a space settlement, space colony, spacestead, space city, orbital habitat, orbital settlement, orbital colony, orbital stead or orbital city) is a more advanced form of living quarters than a space station or habi ...
intended for permanent residence. The second chapter explores radical changes to human bodies and intelligence and the third discusses the impact of these on society. In ''The Social Function of Science'' (1939) he argued that science was not an individual pursuit of abstract knowledge and that the support of research and development should be dramatically increased. Eugene Garfield, originator of the
Science Citation Index The Science Citation Index Expanded – previously entitled Science Citation Index – is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964 ...
, said "his idea of a centralized reprint center was in my thoughts when I first proposed the as yet nonexistent SCI in Science in 1955." '' Science in History'' (1954) is a monumental four-volume attempt to analyse the interaction between science and society. ''The Origin of Life'' (1967) gives the current ideas from
Oparin Alexander Ivanovich Oparin (russian: Александр Иванович Опарин; – April 21, 1980) was a Soviet biochemist notable for his theories about the origin of life, and for his book ''The Origin of Life''. He also studied the b ...
and Haldane onwards. Other publications include *
''The World, the Flesh & the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul''
(1929) Jonathan Cape. Scholar
Robert Scholes Robert E. Scholes (1929 – December 9, 2016) was an American literary critic and theorist. He is known for his ideas on fabulation and metafiction. Education and career Robert Scholes was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929. After taking his ...
calls this a "book of breathtaking scientific speculation" that "is probably the single most influential source of
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
ideas." * ''Aspects of Dialectical Materialism'' (1934) with E. F. Carritt, Ralph Fox, Hyman Levy,
John Macmurray John MacMurray (16 February 1891 – 21 June 1976) was a Scottish philosopher. His thought both moved beyond and was critical of the modern tradition, whether rationalist or empiricist. His thought may be classified as personalist, as his wri ...
, R. Page Arnot
''The Social Function of Science''
(1939) Faber & Faber * ''Science and the Humanities'' (1946) pamphlet
''The Freedom of Necessity''
(1949)
''The Physical Basis of Life''
(1951)
''Marx and Science''
(1952) Marxism Today Series No. 9
''Science and Industry in the Nineteenth Century''
(1953) Routledge. *
''Science_in_History
''.html" ;"title="Science in History">''Science in History
''">Science in History">''Science in History
''(1954) four volumes in later editions, The Emergence of Science; The Scientific and Industrial Revolutions; The Natural Sciences in Our Time; The Social Sciences: Conclusions. Faber & Faber
''World without War''
(1958) * ''A Prospect of Peace'' (1960) * ''Need There Be Need?'' (1960) pamphlet * ''The Origin of Life'' (1967) * ''Emergence of Science'' (1971) * ''The Extension of Man. A History of Physics before 1900'' (1972) M.I.T. Press also as ''A History of Classical Physics from Antiquity to the Quantum'' * ''Engels and Science'', Labour Monthly pamphlet * ''After Twenty-five Years'' * ''Peace to the World'', British Peace Committee pamphlet * * * *


Political activism

Raised as a Catholic, Bernal became a socialist in Cambridge as a result of a long night arguing with a friend. He also became an atheist. According to one reviewer, "This conversion, as complete as St. Paul's on the road to Damascus, goes some way to account for, but not excuse, Bernal's blind allegiance for the rest of his life, to the Soviet Union". He joined the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
(CPGB) in 1923. His membership evidently lapsed when he returned to Cambridge in 1927 and was not renewed until 1933, and he may have lost his card again shortly afterward. Bernal became a prominent
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator o ...
in political life, particularly in the 1930s. He attended the famous 1931 meeting on the
history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...
, where he met the Soviets
Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
, and Boris Hessen who gave an influential
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
account of the work of
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...
. That meeting fundamentally changed his world view and he maintained sympathy for the Soviet Union and
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
. In 1939, Bernal published ''The Social Function of Science'', probably the earliest text on the
sociology of science The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociolog ...
. After World War II, although Bernal had been involved in evaluating the effects of atomic attacks against the Soviet Union, he supported the
World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace The World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace ( pl, Światowy Kongres Intelektualistów w Obronie Pokoju) was an international conference held on 25 to 28 August 1948 at Wrocław University of Technology. It was organized in the afterma ...
organised in Communist Poland in 1948. Afterwards, he wrote a letter to the ''
New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'' warning that the US was preparing "a war for complete world domination". Consequently, when Bernal was invited to a world peace conference in New York in February 1949, his visa was refused. However, he was allowed into France in April for the World Congress of the Partisans of Peace, with
Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French physicist and husband of Irène Joliot-Curie, with whom he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of Induced radioactivity. T ...
as president and Bernal as vice-president. The following year the organisation changed its name to the
World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mas ...
. On 20 September 1949, after his return from giving a speech strongly critical of Western countries at a peace conference in Moscow, the '' Evening Star'' newspaper of
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...
published an interview with Bernal in which he endorsed Soviet agriculture and the "proletarian science" of
Trofim Lysenko Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (russian: Трофим Денисович Лысенко, uk, Трохи́м Дени́сович Лисе́нко, ; 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and pseudo-scientist.''An ill-educated agronomist with hu ...
. The Lysenko affair had erupted in August 1948, when Stalin authorised Lysenko's theory of plant genetics as official Soviet orthodoxy, and he refused any deviation. Bernal and the whole British scientific left were damaged by his support for Lysenko's theory, even after many scientists had abandoned their sympathy for the Soviet Union. Under pressure from the burgeoning
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
, the president of British
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
had resigned from the
Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
in November 1948. In November 1949, the British Association for the Advancement of Science removed Bernal from membership of its council. Membership in British radical science groups quickly declined. Unlike some of his socialist colleagues, Bernal persisted in defending the Soviet position on Lysenko. He publicly refused to accept the gaping fissures that the dispute revealed between the study of natural science and dialectical materialism. In November 1950,
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
, a fellow communist, en route to a Soviet-sponsored World Peace Congress in
Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...
created a mural in Bernal's flat at the top of No. 22 Torrington Square. In 2007, it became part of the Wellcome Trust's collectionThe night that Picasso was a little plastered
''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'', 2 April 2007.
Bernal's Picasso goes on show in London at Wellcome Collection
Culture24 Culture24, originally the 24 Hour Museum, is a British charity which publishes websites, ''Culture24'', ''Museum Crush'' and ''Show Me'', about visual culture and heritage in the United Kingdom, as well as supplying data and support services to ...
, UK, 14 January 2008.
for £250,000. Throughout the 1950s, Bernal maintained a faith in the Soviet Union as a vehicle for the creation of a socialist scientific utopia. In 1953, he was awarded the
Stalin Peace Prize The International Lenin Peace Prize (russian: международная Ленинская премия мира, ''mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya premiya mira)'' was a Soviet Union award named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a pane ...
. From 1959 to 1965, he was president of the
World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mas ...
.


Awards and honours

Bernal was awarded the
Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...
in 1945, the Guthrie lecture in 1947, the
Stalin Peace Prize The International Lenin Peace Prize (russian: международная Ленинская премия мира, ''mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya premiya mira)'' was a Soviet Union award named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a pane ...
in 1953, the Grotius Gold Medal in 1959 and the
Bakerian Lecture The Bakerian Medal is one of the premier medals of the Royal Society that recognizes exceptional and outstanding science. It comes with a medal award and a prize lecture. The medalist is required to give a lecture on any topic related to physical ...
in 1962. Bernal was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...
in 1937. A fictional portrait of Bernal appears in the novel ''The Search'', an early work of his friend C. P. Snow. He was also said to be the inspiration for the character Tengal in ''The Holiday'' by Stevie Smith. The
Bernal Lecture The Bernal Lecture was an annual lecture on the social function of science organised by the Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United ...
and its successor the
Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture The Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture is a public lecture organised annually by the Royal Society of London. It was formed in 2005 by the merger of the Wilkins Lecture, the Bernal Lecture and the Medawar Lecture. The subject matter for the lecture i ...
Medal and Lecture were named in his honour.


Legacy

The Bernal Building at the
University of Limerick The University of Limerick (UL) ( ga, Ollscoil Luimnigh) is a public research university institution in Limerick, Ireland. Founded in 1972 as the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick, it became a university in 1989 in accordance w ...
was named in his honour. He is the eponym of the
John Desmond Bernal Prize The John Desmond Bernal Prize is an award given annually by the Society for Social Studies of Science The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is a non-profit scholarly association devoted to the social studies of science and technology ...
.


Personal life

Bernal had two children (Mike, 1926–2016 and Egan, b.1930) with his wife Agnes Eileen Sprague (referred to as Eileen), who was a secretary. He married Sprague on 21 June 1922, the day after having been awarded his BA degree. Bernal was 21, Sprague 23. Sprague was described as an active socialist and their marriage as 'open' which they both lived up to 'with great gusto'. In the early 1930s he had a brief intimate relationship with chemist
Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...
, whose scientific research work he mentored. He had a long-term relationship with the artists' patron Margaret Gardiner. Their son
Martin Bernal Martin Gardiner Bernal (; 10 March 1937 – 9 June 2013) was a British scholar of modern Chinese political history. He was a Professor of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is best known for his work '' Black Athena'', ...
(1937–2013) was a professor in the Department of Government at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
and author of the controversial Afrocentric work ''
Black Athena ''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'', its three volumes first published in 1987, 1991, and 2006 respectively, is a controversial book by Martin Bernal proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of ancient Gre ...
''. Margaret referred to herself as "Mrs. Bernal", though the two never married. Eileen is mentioned as his widow in 1990.Brief biography of Bernal at the National Portrait Gallery, London
/ref> He also had a child (Jane, b.1953) with Margot Heinemann.


Writings


''The World, the Flesh & the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul''
(1929)


References


Sources

* * John Finch; 'A Nobel Fellow On Every Floor', Medical Research Council 2008, 381 pp, ; this book is all about the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge. * * ''The Visible College'' (1978) Gary Werskey, on Bernal,
J. B. S. Haldane John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolo ...
, Lancelot Hogben, Hyman Levy and
Joseph Needham Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (; 9 December 1900 – 24 March 1995) was a British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science and technology, i ...
, 2nd edition 1988 * * ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'': ‘Bernal, (John) Desmond (1901–1971)’ by
Robert Olby Robert Cecil Olby (born in Beckenham on October 4, 1933; died December 31, 2020) was a research professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Formerly Reader at the University of Leeds, UK, Rober ...
, first published Sept 2004, 2870 words, with portrait illustration * * * *


External links


'Bernal and the Social Function of Science' A Masterclass by Chris Freeman, Science Policy Research Unit, Sussex
Freeview video provided by the Vega Science Trust. *Helena Sheehan J D Bernal: philosophy, politics and the science of science Journal of Physics 2007
R. M. Young '' 'The Relevance of Bernal's Questions' ''

Bernal papers at London School of Economics Archives (relating to his involvement with the peace movement)


* ttp://www.marxists.org/archive/bernal Marxist Writers: John Desmond Bernal (Free versions of some of his writings.)
Roy Johnston, 1999, '' 'Century of Endeavour: J D Bernal and the Science and Society Theme' ''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernal, John Desmond 20th-century Irish people 1901 births 1971 deaths People from County Westmeath Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge British biophysicists British former Christians British atheists British inventors Irish emigrants to the United Kingdom British people of Italian-Jewish descent British people of Portuguese-Jewish descent British people of Spanish-Jewish descent British physicists Communist Party of Great Britain members British crystallographers Fellows of the Royal Society Foreign Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Former Roman Catholics Historians of science Jewish socialists People educated at Bedford School People educated at Stonyhurst College People from Nenagh Royal Navy officers of World War II Space colonization Stalin Peace Prize recipients X-ray crystallography British communists World Peace Council 20th-century Irish historians Irish people of Jewish descent Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Presidents of the International Union of Crystallography