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John Desmond Bernal

John Desmond Bernal Books

Physicist

Marx and science

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“In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues, and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal.”

KnowsMenPurposeGoalRealizingCommonLeaderWillingDependsAuthorityAchievementLosingIndividualityChosenSuperiorsCollaborationColleaguesSubordinatesPredecessorsSuccessorsFruitionCommon Purpose
Author:John Desmond Bernal
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“In my own field, x-ray crystallography, we used to work out the structure of minerals by various dodges which we never bothered to write down, we just used them. Then Linus Pauling came along to the laboratory, saw what we were doing and wrote out what we now call Pauling's Rules. We had all been using Pauling's Rules for about three or four years before Pauling told us what the rules were.”

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Author:John Desmond Bernal
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“In fact, we will have to give up taking things for granted, even the apparently simple things. We have to learn to understand nature and not merely to observe it and endure what it imposes on us. Stupidity, from being an amiable individual defect, has become a social crime.”

GivingFactsScienceIndividualSocialSimpleCrimeGiving UpEndureStupidityObservationGrantedDefectsSimple ThingsAmiableTaking Things For Granted
Book:The origin of life
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“Pauling was shocked by the freedom with which the X-ray crystallographers of the time, including particularly Astbury, played with the intimate chemical structure of their models. They seemed to think that if the atoms were arranged in the right order and about the right distance apart, that was all that mattered, that no further restrictions need to be put on them.”

IfsThinkingNeedsScienceOrderFreedomModelsStructureDistanceIncludingIntimateChemicalsRaysAtomsShockedRestrictionDistance Apart
Author:John Desmond Bernal
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“We academic scientists move within a certain sphere, we can go on being useless up to a point, in the confidence that sooner or later some use will be found for our studies. The mathematician, of course, prides himself on being totally useless, but usually turns out to be the most useful of the lot. He finds the solution but he is not interested in what the problem is: sooner or later, someone will find the problem to which his solution is the answer.”

UseProblemMovingScienceCertainTurnsCoursesFoundAnswersStudyPrideGoes OnSolutionsScientistUselessSpheresAcademicNot InterestedSooner Or LaterMathematician
Author:John Desmond Bernal
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“So many of the chemical reactions occurring in living systems have been shown to be catalytic processes occurring isothermally on the surface of specific proteins, referred to as enzymes, that it seems fairly safe to assume that all are of this nature and that the proteins are the necessary basis for carrying out the processes that we call life.”

Has BeensSeemsScienceProcessNatureSafeBasesAssumingSurfaceReactionsChemicalsProteinChemical ReactionsEnzymes
Author:John Desmond Bernal
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“The question of the origin of life is essentially speculative. We have to construct, by straightforward thinking on the basis of very few factual observations, a plausible and self-consistent picture of a process which must have occurred before any of the forms which are known to us in the fossil record could have existed.”

ThinkingSelfFormLife IsProcessKnownRecordsBasesObservationConsistentConstructsFossilsStraightforwardPlausibleFactualOrigin Of Life
Book:The origin of life
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