0:00:33 > 0:00:36On 28th March, 1726,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39a coffin was carried into Westminster Abbey.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43In it was the body of a man who had held high office,
0:00:43 > 0:00:45although he wasn't a politician.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49He had had men hanged, although he wasn't a member of the judiciary.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52And he'd written extensively on the Scriptures,
0:00:52 > 0:00:54although he was no cleric or priest.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58His coffin was carried by the Lord Chancellor,
0:00:58 > 0:01:01two dukes and three earls.
0:01:01 > 0:01:03That man was Isaac Newton.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12To be buried in Westminster Abbey
0:01:12 > 0:01:16was an honour usually reserved for kings and nobles,
0:01:16 > 0:01:18not commoners like Newton.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21But Newton was no ordinary man.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Even here, it's written,
0:01:27 > 0:01:32"Mortals rejoice that there has existed such an ornament of the human race".
0:01:32 > 0:01:35Now, Newton was the first natural philosopher,
0:01:35 > 0:01:37or scientist, as we now call him,
0:01:37 > 0:01:39to be honoured in this way.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41But he certainly wasn't the last.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44And here is James Clerk Maxwell.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47Here, Michael Faraday.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50And here, Paul Dirac.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53With his equation describing the behaviour of the electron
0:01:53 > 0:01:57inscribed into the stone on the floor of Westminster Abbey.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08It's perhaps no coincidence
0:02:08 > 0:02:11that a country that honours its leading scientists in this way
0:02:11 > 0:02:14has produced far more than its fair share
0:02:14 > 0:02:16of trailblazers and innovators.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Men and women who explained heredity by decoding DNA.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30Who provided the physics for every space programme ever conceived.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37And transformed communication for ever with the World Wide Web.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46In this series, I want to explore Britain's pivotal role
0:02:46 > 0:02:48in creating modern science.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53Reveal the characters who have made science what it is today.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58Show how Britain has used its scientific strength
0:02:58 > 0:03:00for over 300 years.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05And explore what the future holds for British science.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41British scientists have made and continue to make,
0:03:41 > 0:03:44some of the great scientific discoveries.
0:03:44 > 0:03:49But of equal importance from a historical perspective,
0:03:49 > 0:03:53was the development of the means by which we do science.
0:03:53 > 0:03:57The idea that you build theories, you test them by experiment
0:03:57 > 0:03:59and you publish the results.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02This is known as the scientific method.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05It is the bedrock of science.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10And it was developed and first used, to a large extent, here in Britain.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20This is The Royal Society.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23A fellowship of the world's most eminent scientists
0:04:23 > 0:04:26that has existed since 1660.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40Its members include virtually all of the great names in science.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42From Charles Darwin to Michael Faraday.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49These are people whose ideas and investigations
0:04:49 > 0:04:52have transformed our understanding of the natural world.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00That they were able to perform such a transformation
0:05:00 > 0:05:01is remarkable enough.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03But what's also remarkable
0:05:03 > 0:05:06is that many of The Royal Society's members
0:05:06 > 0:05:08would've traced their towering achievements
0:05:08 > 0:05:11back to the work of one man.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13Sir Isaac Newton.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17This is Newton's death mask.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20It's a plaster cast of his face
0:05:20 > 0:05:23that would've been taken moments after he died.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25And the technique was to make these masks
0:05:25 > 0:05:28whilst the body was still warm.
0:05:28 > 0:05:32And it's really quite an eerie thing to look at.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37When you think of Newton as a physicist,
0:05:37 > 0:05:41you think of Newton as almost an abstract set of theories.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46You know, F = MA, force equals mass times acceleration.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48You think of his universal law of gravitation.
0:05:48 > 0:05:52That first universal, physical law that's still used to this day
0:05:52 > 0:05:56to send spacecraft to the edge of the solar system and beyond.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59But when you look at this,
0:05:59 > 0:06:01you see a different Newton.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04You see Newton, the man.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Newton certainly wasn't the easiest person to get along with.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21He was obsessive, malicious
0:06:21 > 0:06:24and prone to outbursts of rage.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28But there was something quite extraordinary
0:06:28 > 0:06:30about the way that he worked.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36In an age when people still believed in magic,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39Newton devised a revolutionary theoretical framework
0:06:39 > 0:06:43with which to accurately investigate the nature of the world.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52Newton was born in 1642
0:06:52 > 0:06:55into an England that was a country in transition.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57That was the start of the English Civil War.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00It was a country where they were still hunting for witches.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03But also, it was a country where science,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06where rational thought, where reason were beginning to flower.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10Now, at the time, one of the great questions
0:07:10 > 0:07:12was about the nature of light.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16It was known that if you take a prism and shine sunlight through it,
0:07:16 > 0:07:20then it splits that sunlight
0:07:20 > 0:07:22into all the colours of the rainbow.
0:07:22 > 0:07:23The question was why.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26Now, the prevailing scientific view
0:07:26 > 0:07:28was that sunlight must be perfect.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32This dated all the way back to Aristotle and the Ancient Greeks.
0:07:32 > 0:07:34How could something that comes from the heavens
0:07:34 > 0:07:36be anything other than perfect?
0:07:41 > 0:07:44The common explanation for the appearance of the colours
0:07:44 > 0:07:47was that they were impurities added by the prism
0:07:47 > 0:07:49to the pure white light.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54Newton thought that the colours
0:07:54 > 0:07:56were already present in the white sunlight.
0:07:58 > 0:08:00But what set Newton apart
0:08:00 > 0:08:03was the fact that he devised and performed an experiment
0:08:03 > 0:08:06to test his hypothesis.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19Then, and here's the genius,
0:08:19 > 0:08:24he introduced a slit into that rainbow beam.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28And that allowed him to isolate a particular colour of light
0:08:28 > 0:08:31and shine that into a second prism.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37Then he looked for the deflection of the coloured light onto his wall.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40You can see that over there.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Now, look what happens
0:08:43 > 0:08:48when I move the red light across the slit, to the green light.
0:08:48 > 0:08:53On the wall, what you see is green light into the prism
0:08:53 > 0:08:56equals green light out.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01Now, that implies that the colours themselves are pure.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05The prism is not adding or subtracting anything.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10That means that Newton's hypothesis was shown to be correct.
0:09:10 > 0:09:11The colours themselves
0:09:11 > 0:09:14are the basic building blocks of light.
0:09:14 > 0:09:19And white light is made up of all those individual colours.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21That's genius.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37Newton was one of the first to interrogate nature
0:09:37 > 0:09:41using the principles of what we now call the scientific method.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44In other words, he observed the world,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48came up with theories to explain what he saw,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51then tested them with experiments to see if he was right.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58The power of this approach
0:09:58 > 0:10:01is that it aims to remove preconceived ideas.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04And in doing so, deliver a more accurate description
0:10:04 > 0:10:06of the natural world.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14But for all his clarity of thought and experimental technique,
0:10:14 > 0:10:18Newton himself seems to have been strangely unaware
0:10:18 > 0:10:20of the importance of his work.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27This is a priceless book.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30It is the first handwritten manuscript
0:10:30 > 0:10:33of Newton's great masterpiece, the Principia.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35It's in here the first time
0:10:35 > 0:10:39that the universal law of gravitation is outlined.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41It's also his laws of motion
0:10:41 > 0:10:44that say how objects move around in the universe.
0:10:46 > 0:10:47It's pretty much everything you do
0:10:47 > 0:10:50in the first year of an undergraduate degree in physics.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54And the story behind the writing of this book is fascinating.
0:10:54 > 0:10:56It reveals a lot about Newton.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00The astronomer Edmond Halley said,
0:11:00 > 0:11:03"Is it true that there's a universal law of gravity
0:11:03 > 0:11:07"that can explain the observed orbits of the planets?"
0:11:07 > 0:11:10Newton said, "Yeah, I've proved it. "I proved it a couple of years ago."
0:11:10 > 0:11:12And he went to look for his notes,
0:11:12 > 0:11:14and the story is that he couldn't find them.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17And so he just sat down and wrote the whole thing out again.
0:11:17 > 0:11:24And it's that conversation with Halley that led to the Principia.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26So, it's interesting to speculate
0:11:26 > 0:11:29that if it had been left up to Newton,
0:11:29 > 0:11:31then maybe the greatest work in the history of science
0:11:31 > 0:11:33wouldn't have been published at all.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39The joy of exploring nature was enough for Newton.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42And the act of writing it down and sharing his knowledge
0:11:42 > 0:11:46with others was somehow secondary.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06Newton was certainly a man of contradictions.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10Given that he lived and worked in the middle of the 17th century.
0:12:11 > 0:12:17He stood at the cusp, at the dawn of the Age of Reason.
0:12:17 > 0:12:22And so, he was undoubtedly a man with feet in both worlds.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24The mystical and the scientific.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27He was an astrologer, an alchemist,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31but he was also a man who understood
0:12:31 > 0:12:34what it is to be a scientist almost innately.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38He said that the nature of things
0:12:38 > 0:12:42can be most naturally and securely deduced
0:12:42 > 0:12:45by their operations one upon another,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47rather than upon the senses.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52By which he meant that the only way to understand how nature works
0:12:52 > 0:12:53is to look at it
0:12:53 > 0:12:56and then use logic and reason
0:12:56 > 0:12:58to understand and explain what you see.
0:13:13 > 0:13:15On the face of it, it seems baffling
0:13:15 > 0:13:19that the scientific method took so long to emerge.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22After all, Newton lived just a few hundred years ago.
0:13:27 > 0:13:29Part of the problem is that our world
0:13:29 > 0:13:32IS a complicated and baffling place.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37But it's much easier to understand if you simplify it.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43It is possible to deduce the nature of light by investigating a rainbow.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49But by creating a controllable, repeatable experiment,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52Newton was able to support his hypothesis
0:13:52 > 0:13:55and then transfer that understanding
0:13:55 > 0:13:58to the much more complex world outside the laboratory.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12It's this logical, systematic approach
0:14:12 > 0:14:14that has enabled British science
0:14:14 > 0:14:16to shed light on nature's great mysteries,
0:14:16 > 0:14:20from the structure of matter to the orbits of the planets.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24It's also improved our lives through its application
0:14:24 > 0:14:27to medicine and technology.
0:14:29 > 0:14:32And 250 years after Isaac Newton laid its foundation,
0:14:32 > 0:14:34the scientific method
0:14:34 > 0:14:37provided Britain a lifeline in our darkest hour.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48NEWSREEL: 'Nazi strategy is to starve Britain of food and munitions.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53'Scores of Nazi U-boats set out to harry the ships
0:14:53 > 0:14:56'that bring essential stocks and supplies to Britain.'
0:14:59 > 0:15:04In 1940, the convoys bringing supplies of food and ammunition
0:15:04 > 0:15:07from America to Britain were suffering a frightening rate of attrition
0:15:07 > 0:15:10at the hands of German U-boats.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13And Churchill and others genuinely thought
0:15:13 > 0:15:16that we were within weeks of losing the war.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20Now, salvation came, not in the form of a new weapon system,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23a new aircraft or warship,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27but at the hands of a few dedicated people,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29geniuses even,
0:15:29 > 0:15:31with pencils and paper,
0:15:31 > 0:15:34working here in sheds in Buckinghamshire.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42Bletchley Park was the centre
0:15:42 > 0:15:45for British code-breaking during World War II.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50It was here that intercepted German messages were brought for analysis.
0:15:56 > 0:15:58Captain Jerry Roberts was part of the group
0:15:58 > 0:16:03assigned the task of decrypting the daily flow of communications.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07He'd just graduated with a degree in French and German,
0:16:07 > 0:16:11but it was his keen interest in chess and crosswords
0:16:11 > 0:16:13that landed him the job.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17Did you take delight in just the intellectual challenge
0:16:17 > 0:16:19of breaking the code every day?
0:16:19 > 0:16:22Did that almost, I don't know, remove from your mind
0:16:22 > 0:16:27the bigger picture because you had to focus so much on that act?
0:16:27 > 0:16:29We greatly enjoyed the process of breaking, you know?
0:16:29 > 0:16:31It was great fun.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34I have to be quite honest
0:16:34 > 0:16:39and say, we were not thinking too much about the impact on the war,
0:16:39 > 0:16:44we were thinking about how we could get a bit further along, you know?
0:16:44 > 0:16:45Yeah.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54The Nazi war machine ran on radio communications,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57coded signals between the forces in the field
0:16:57 > 0:17:00and the high command in Berlin.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04Most of the general traffic was encoded by a machine called Enigma.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07By the time Gerry Roberts arrived at Bletchley,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11the Allies had broken the Enigma code thanks to the
0:17:11 > 0:17:14mathematical work done by Alan Turing
0:17:14 > 0:17:17and also because a working Enigma machine had been captured.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26But the big prize was another code that was
0:17:26 > 0:17:30reserved for the highest level signals from Berlin.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33It used some of the same principles as Enigma,
0:17:33 > 0:17:35but it was far more complicated.
0:17:35 > 0:17:40The Nazi high command knew this code as the Lorenz cipher.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42The Allies called it Tunny.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46Tunny had not one, not two,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50but three levels of encryption.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52It should never, ever have been broken.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02And it might not have been were it not for the scientific approach
0:18:02 > 0:18:05taken by a shy and unassuming man called Bill Tutte
0:18:05 > 0:18:09of reducing the complex to the simple.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13He dedicated every waking hour
0:18:13 > 0:18:16for nearly three months to cracking the code.
0:18:19 > 0:18:24I was actually sitting in the same office as he was
0:18:24 > 0:18:27when he was doing it,
0:18:27 > 0:18:33and I saw him staring into the middle distance,
0:18:33 > 0:18:35twiddling his pencil,
0:18:35 > 0:18:38and making counts on reams of paper,
0:18:38 > 0:18:45and I used to wonder whether he was getting anything done!
0:18:45 > 0:18:48My goodness, he was.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51It was an extraordinary feat of the mind.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55I find it remarkable. Do you understand how Tutte did it?
0:18:55 > 0:18:59It's partly mathematics, but mostly logic.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02If this is this and that is that,
0:19:02 > 0:19:06then it follows that this must be the other conclusion.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16No-one on the Allied side had seen the machine that produced Tunny.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22So the fact that Tutte cracked the code with little more than his brain
0:19:22 > 0:19:26and a pencil is a testament to an extraordinary work of genius.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33The Allies had recorded a message that had been sent twice
0:19:33 > 0:19:36using the same Tunny encryption or key.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42It was this tiny lapse in procedure that gave Tutte a way in
0:19:42 > 0:19:45to crack the entire system.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47His approach was scientific.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51Because the messages were similar, but not identical,
0:19:51 > 0:19:53and they used the same key,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57he knew there would be repeated patterns
0:19:57 > 0:20:01and if he could find those patterns by careful observation,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04he could crack the code.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07He eventually did find a pattern
0:20:07 > 0:20:11and in that pattern, was hidden a prime number - 41.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15His hypothesis was this was the number of settings possible
0:20:15 > 0:20:18for the first of Tunny's scrambling wheels
0:20:18 > 0:20:21and this turned out to be correct.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24It was the key to unlocking the entire cipher.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28As a cryptographer,
0:20:28 > 0:20:33I find that almost impossible to believe that he did it.
0:20:33 > 0:20:38One man called it the outstanding mental feat of the last century.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42Not the war, the last century.
0:20:45 > 0:20:49Unlike the Enigma code-breakers, Tutte had never seen the machine
0:20:49 > 0:20:52the Nazis used to produce the code that he cracked.
0:20:52 > 0:20:57But by using logic, careful observation
0:20:57 > 0:21:00and by producing testable hypotheses,
0:21:00 > 0:21:04he managed to determine exactly how it worked.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09And that meant it was possible to build a machine
0:21:09 > 0:21:14to automatically decipher the coded signals as they were issued.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33By applying a scientific approach, Bill Tutte allowed the Allies
0:21:33 > 0:21:37to listen in to virtually every word uttered by the Nazi high command,
0:21:37 > 0:21:41and the consequences were breathtaking.
0:21:44 > 0:21:49I strongly suspect that our generals sometimes saw the text
0:21:49 > 0:21:53of the messages before the blessed German generals did!
0:21:53 > 0:21:57General Eisenhower said, after the war,
0:21:57 > 0:22:00that Bletchley decrypts helped shorten the war
0:22:00 > 0:22:03by at least two years.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05At LEAST two years.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07And this was a war
0:22:07 > 0:22:12in which ten million people died each year on average.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19Bill Tutte had achieved the seemingly impossible.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23He'd done it by applying the principles of logic
0:22:23 > 0:22:25enshrined in the scientific method.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28But that's only part of the story.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31Tutte was fascinated by problem-solving
0:22:31 > 0:22:35long before he'd ever heard of Tunny or Bletchley Park.
0:22:35 > 0:22:37Like Newton, Darwin, Faraday
0:22:37 > 0:22:40and countless other scientists before and since,
0:22:40 > 0:22:44Tutte was interested in, perhaps even obsessed by,
0:22:44 > 0:22:46discovering how things work.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04Richard Borcherds is a latter-day Tutte.
0:23:07 > 0:23:13..First I start adding up squares, so I take nought squared, plus one squared, plus two squared...
0:23:13 > 0:23:17He's a professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20An elliptic modular function looks like this...
0:23:21 > 0:23:23Another British scientist on a quest
0:23:23 > 0:23:26to solve an apparently uncrackable code.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31What I'm doing is trying to understand
0:23:31 > 0:23:36not just how the universe works, but why it exists or why it works.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38That's a very scary question that...
0:23:38 > 0:23:41You know, why does the universe exist at all?
0:23:45 > 0:23:50Richard has spent the last 15 years trying to solve an abstract problem
0:23:50 > 0:23:53that lies at the heart of quantum field theory,
0:23:53 > 0:23:56our best current description
0:23:56 > 0:23:58of the building blocks of the natural world.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03It's something that has defeated mathematicians for almost a century,
0:24:03 > 0:24:05but Richard is undeterred.
0:24:05 > 0:24:09He spends many hours a day working on the problem.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14Watching me work is pretty much indistinguishable
0:24:14 > 0:24:17from watching me sleeping.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20I'd generally just be sort of sitting there like this...
0:24:20 > 0:24:23for a long time, just thinking.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Most months you ask me what I've produced this month
0:24:31 > 0:24:35and I will say, "Well, I've discovered this idea doesn't work."
0:24:35 > 0:24:37And that's it.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Most of the work is not in doing calculations,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48but in trying to figure out what calculations to do.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52That's the part of mathematics that takes years
0:24:52 > 0:24:55and years without really getting anywhere.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06Richard has, without question, an unusual mind.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09A mind similar to the Bletchley Park code-breakers.
0:25:09 > 0:25:14One capable of dedicating years on end to the almost incomprehensible task
0:25:14 > 0:25:19of understanding the abstract mathematics that underpins the universe.
0:25:21 > 0:25:24But although his dedication may appear extreme,
0:25:24 > 0:25:29it seems that an element of obsessiveness is something that many scientists share.
0:25:35 > 0:25:37From Isaac Newton to Paul Dirac,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41James Clerk Maxwell to Bill Tutte and Richard Borcherds,
0:25:41 > 0:25:45Britain has produced an array of driven scientists
0:25:45 > 0:25:49who have contributed enormously to our understanding.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53They stand out, not because of their wealth, power or notoriety,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56but because of the way they thought.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03Which might be the reason that they were drawn to science in the first place.
0:26:06 > 0:26:11Professor Simon Baron-Cohen studies the psychology of scientists
0:26:11 > 0:26:16and has discovered that many of them share some specific characteristics.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23Many people in the population
0:26:23 > 0:26:26are quite happy to flit from one topic to another.
0:26:28 > 0:26:34They're happy to chat about something, but they don't want to go on about it for half an hour,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37let alone many, many hours, or days or weeks.
0:26:41 > 0:26:46And, I think, someone with a scientific mind often does want to stay on one topic,
0:26:46 > 0:26:51they want to go deeper into whatever they're studying.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54Now, I'm grinning because I definitely see that in myself,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57and my wife would certainly say that that's the case.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59Once I start talking about something
0:26:59 > 0:27:02I'm likely not to talk about anything else for a long time. Yeah.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05That's interesting, actually, cos I recognise that.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07Yeah, but it's not negative, that's the point.
0:27:07 > 0:27:13That, effectively, we're talking about a mind that prioritises depth over breadth.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16And that used to be seen as something negative,
0:27:16 > 0:27:22that if you go too deeply into something you're obsessional and it should be discouraged.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26But what we can now see is that... Unless you're the aircraft designer that designed the aircraft
0:27:26 > 0:27:29you're sitting on. In which case, it would be desirable!
0:27:29 > 0:27:33I'm delighted that the aircraft designer is obsessional, yeah. Yeah.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37As part of his research, Simon has shown another trait
0:27:37 > 0:27:41to be more common amongst scientists - attention to detail.
0:27:41 > 0:27:46This is an example where we're looking at how well you can pick up detail.
0:27:46 > 0:27:51So, how quickly you can find the target shape hidden in the overall design.
0:27:51 > 0:27:56Scientists are quicker at this test than non-scientists,
0:27:56 > 0:27:59and again, we're not just talking about eccentricity now,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02we're actually looking at a specific psychological process.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09Using a questionnaire, Simon has also measured a trait he calls "systemising".
0:28:09 > 0:28:14This is the drive and ability that people have to understand
0:28:14 > 0:28:17how things work, from the weather to road maps,
0:28:17 > 0:28:19from politics to car engines.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24There are questions in there about how interested
0:28:24 > 0:28:28you are in the electrical wiring in your house.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30I'm very interested in that.
0:28:30 > 0:28:32So, you would probably score, you know, you'd score one point
0:28:32 > 0:28:35on that item and there are lots of items of that kind.
0:28:35 > 0:28:38I once got a fuse box for my birthday when I was young,
0:28:38 > 0:28:43I actually asked for a fuse box. Right. It was my 12th birthday or something, what does that say?
0:28:43 > 0:28:47Well, it's telling us that the test has validity.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50Yeah! It's a sign of a systematic mind.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56What's also interesting is that the personality trait
0:28:56 > 0:28:59Simon has shown to be characteristic of scientists
0:28:59 > 0:29:03are expressed in their extreme in children with autism.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09Kids with autism we know have difficulty socialising,
0:29:09 > 0:29:13but they often have excellent attention to detail
0:29:13 > 0:29:18and they like to look for patterns in things, just like a little scientist really.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21An example might be electrical light switches,
0:29:21 > 0:29:25that they want to look at the effect of putting a light switch
0:29:25 > 0:29:29into different positions, the on and off position, all around the house.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31So it's experimentation. It is. Essentially the scientific method
0:29:31 > 0:29:34in action, just isolating a particular system and...
0:29:34 > 0:29:36It is, but it's in the real world, absolutely.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39I mean, there's no claim in which you would label scientists
0:29:39 > 0:29:43as autistic in some sense, it's ridiculous.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45Absolutely not, that is ridiculous.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49What the evidence is telling us is that on specific measures of relevance,
0:29:49 > 0:29:52scientists are just scoring mid-way
0:29:52 > 0:29:56between people with autism and the rest of the population.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09It will come as no surprise to most people,
0:30:09 > 0:30:13that there are certain character traits that we associate with scientists,
0:30:13 > 0:30:16the idea that you want to deconstruct the world,
0:30:16 > 0:30:19that you pay attention to the smallest details.
0:30:19 > 0:30:25Actually, I can identify some of those traits in myself as a child.
0:30:25 > 0:30:28Some of the questions that Simon asked me about of collecting things...
0:30:28 > 0:30:32I was... I liked to spot buses and tick them off in a list,
0:30:32 > 0:30:35I liked to do the same with trains.
0:30:35 > 0:30:41I also liked to collect electrical apparatus and wire it up and understand how it works.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44And, I suppose, in retrospect, that may have marked me out
0:30:44 > 0:30:50as being statistically more likely to be a scientist when I grew up.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58Scientists' dedication to their subject may sometimes appear
0:30:58 > 0:31:00to be quirky or even eccentric.
0:31:00 > 0:31:05But it stems from a trait that I think many scientists share -
0:31:05 > 0:31:08an all-embracing curiosity.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16This is the only picture of Henry Cavendish,
0:31:16 > 0:31:21and the reason is that he was very uncomfortable about sitting for portraits. In fact, he never did it.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27So this was done mainly by an artist who glimpsed him over dinner
0:31:27 > 0:31:29and then sketched it from memory.
0:31:29 > 0:31:33It shows all the essential eccentric features of the man.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36He's wearing a hat which has been described as something
0:31:36 > 0:31:38from the previous century.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42Remember, this is a man who was living in the 1700s,
0:31:42 > 0:31:44so he's got a 17th-century three-cornered hat.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48And he always wore the same coat and he liked it
0:31:48 > 0:31:52so much that every year when it wore out,
0:31:52 > 0:31:55because he wore it every day,
0:31:55 > 0:31:59he had a new one, exactly the same, tailored.
0:32:00 > 0:32:04Cavendish's main aim in life was to weigh, measure and classify
0:32:04 > 0:32:10as many objects in the universe as he possibly could,
0:32:10 > 0:32:15and fortunately, like many scientists at the time,
0:32:15 > 0:32:20he was fabulously wealthy so he was able to indulge his curiosity
0:32:20 > 0:32:23with hundreds of extraordinary experiments.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25Like this one,
0:32:25 > 0:32:28which he first reported in 1766.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35It involves taking a metal,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38we'll take zinc,
0:32:38 > 0:32:40and then I'm going to pour
0:32:40 > 0:32:44concentrated hydrochloric acid onto the zinc.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56Now I'm going to bubble the gas that's produced into this soap solution,
0:32:56 > 0:33:01so these bubbles are now going to be filled with this gas,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05and very quickly and carefully I'm going to light the gas.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08GAS POPS
0:33:08 > 0:33:12Now, Cavendish called that, not inappropriately,
0:33:12 > 0:33:15I suppose, "inflammable air".
0:33:15 > 0:33:20It's the gas that we now know as hydrogen.
0:33:20 > 0:33:21GAS POPS
0:33:21 > 0:33:24But Cavendish didn't stop there,
0:33:24 > 0:33:28he doggedly continued his quest to quantify hydrogen
0:33:28 > 0:33:33until he could describe every aspect of its existence.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36So, he wanted to see how his newly discovered gas,
0:33:36 > 0:33:38hydrogen, as we now call it,
0:33:38 > 0:33:42reacted with other things, including air.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45So, I'm going to repeat Cavendish's experiment again
0:33:45 > 0:33:49but this time with a vessel.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51What I'm going to do is fill it with hydrogen...
0:33:51 > 0:33:55GAS HISSES
0:33:55 > 0:34:00So, that's full of inflammable air, and I'm going to light the spark.
0:34:00 > 0:34:01COMPUTER BEEPS
0:34:01 > 0:34:03LOUD BANG
0:34:07 > 0:34:11Now, what you saw there was a chemical reaction,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14the reaction of hydrogen with air, and if you look closely
0:34:14 > 0:34:17on the sides of the flask,
0:34:17 > 0:34:20you'll see that it's... Well, it's wet.
0:34:20 > 0:34:24That is water and it's appeared as a result of the chemical reaction.
0:34:26 > 0:34:30In many respects, Cavendish embodies what science
0:34:30 > 0:34:33and what being a scientist is all about.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38His curiosity about the world drove him to design experiments
0:34:38 > 0:34:42in an effort to gain new insights into the way the world works.
0:34:45 > 0:34:50Now, Cavendish didn't really have any idea what happened in these chemical reactions,
0:34:50 > 0:34:54indeed his whole theoretical framework was nonsense to modernise,
0:34:54 > 0:34:55it was based on alchemy.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59He thought things burned because they contained a substance called "phlogiston".
0:35:00 > 0:35:02LOUD BANG
0:35:02 > 0:35:06But even though that is complete nonsense,
0:35:06 > 0:35:08because he was a great experimental scientist,
0:35:08 > 0:35:14his measurements were correct, so he managed to measure that water
0:35:14 > 0:35:18is made of two parts of hydrogen to one part of oxygen, H2O,
0:35:18 > 0:35:24even though he didn't believe that water was made of anything at all!
0:35:24 > 0:35:28So, that ability to get your theoretical picture,
0:35:28 > 0:35:32your ideas about the way that nature works completely wrong,
0:35:32 > 0:35:34and yet make honest and precise measurements
0:35:34 > 0:35:37that stand the test of time and are correct,
0:35:37 > 0:35:41is the mark of a great experimental scientist.
0:35:46 > 0:35:52Cavendish has rightly gone down in history as one of this country's greatest scientists,
0:35:52 > 0:35:56but perhaps he should be remembered more for his association
0:35:56 > 0:35:59with another aspect of science,
0:35:59 > 0:36:02because he was instrumental in establishing this place
0:36:02 > 0:36:05at 21, Albemarle Street, London.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07The Royal Institution.
0:36:20 > 0:36:25This fireplace occupies a central place in the history of British science.
0:36:25 > 0:36:28It was part of a house in Soho Square
0:36:28 > 0:36:32where three of the great characters in British scientific history
0:36:32 > 0:36:37gathered to discuss the foundation of this place, The Royal Institution.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40Those three men were Count Rumford of Bavaria,
0:36:40 > 0:36:42who is a colourful character.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46He was born in America, he was a soldier, a philanthropist,
0:36:46 > 0:36:51a scientist, an engineer. And many people say, a philanderer.
0:36:51 > 0:36:52Then there was Cavendish,
0:36:52 > 0:36:57that most eccentric of British scientists and experimenters.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00And finally, there was Joseph Banks who is an iconic figure
0:37:00 > 0:37:03in 18th and 19th-century science.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07He began his scientific career as a botanist aboard the Endeavour
0:37:07 > 0:37:12with Captain Cook in 1768 on the journey to Tahiti
0:37:12 > 0:37:15to measure the transit of Venus.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17And he was not a stereotypical scientist,
0:37:17 > 0:37:22I've seen him described as a man with a thick bramble of curly hair,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25he had a brooding, romantic intensity.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29He sounds more like Heathcliff than a man of science.
0:37:29 > 0:37:34But Banks, although he was president of The Royal Society for 40 years,
0:37:34 > 0:37:36was passionate about democratising science.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39He felt that British science was to insular -
0:37:39 > 0:37:43a preserve of the rich, famous, and politically well-connected.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46And so the three of them came up with the idea for this place,
0:37:46 > 0:37:49centred around this lecture theatre.
0:37:49 > 0:37:55Where the vision was that the public could hear of the great discoveries of science.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07The Royal Institution became a platform for a new breed -
0:38:07 > 0:38:09a science personality.
0:38:12 > 0:38:18From Humphry Davy, the showman who famously danced with joy at his scientific discoveries,
0:38:18 > 0:38:22to Michael Faraday, who began the tradition
0:38:22 > 0:38:25of giving the, now famous, Christmas lectures.
0:38:25 > 0:38:31And the theatre is still used by scientists to engage with the public to this day.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34If now I remove the filter... LOUD BANG
0:38:34 > 0:38:38..something happens.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40DULL BOOM
0:38:40 > 0:38:42APPLAUSE
0:38:42 > 0:38:43Oh, yes!
0:38:43 > 0:38:45APPLAUSE
0:38:45 > 0:38:48LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:38:48 > 0:38:52So, I'd like you to grab some of that hydrogen in the soap bubbles.
0:38:52 > 0:38:54Um...
0:38:54 > 0:38:57LOUD BANG Whoa! Ow! You all right?
0:38:57 > 0:38:58LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:39:02 > 0:39:06Banks and his colleagues were right, people really do want to hear
0:39:06 > 0:39:09about the findings of science and engineering,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12about the exploration of the universe.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16So popular were the public lectures here at the Royal Institution,
0:39:16 > 0:39:22so crowded was Albemarle Street with horses and carriages delivering people to hear those lectures,
0:39:22 > 0:39:26that Albemarle Street had to be made the first one-way street in London.
0:39:32 > 0:39:37Britain helped to give the world what we now call the scientific method.
0:39:37 > 0:39:42It produced great scientists like Newton and Cavendish
0:39:42 > 0:39:46who used experimentation to make discoveries.
0:39:49 > 0:39:51It was amongst the first countries to understand
0:39:51 > 0:39:56that the pursuit of science is a vital part of nationhood,
0:39:56 > 0:40:00and that public engagement ensures science's bloodline.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06But there's another British phenomenon that has had perhaps
0:40:06 > 0:40:09the greatest impact on the progress of science,
0:40:09 > 0:40:16and that is the simple act of writing down and sharing ideas.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21The roots of that sharing can be traced
0:40:21 > 0:40:24to one of the most iconic books in the history of science.
0:40:24 > 0:40:29It's considered so valuable that it's kept in a climate-controlled vault.
0:40:32 > 0:40:38Published in 1665, this is the first edition
0:40:38 > 0:40:41of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44It is the first scientific journal.
0:40:44 > 0:40:49And I think the best description of what scientific journals mean
0:40:49 > 0:40:53should be left to the first editor, Oldenburg,
0:40:53 > 0:40:56who wrote that the purpose of this
0:40:56 > 0:41:01is to allow scientists to "impart their knowledge to one another
0:41:01 > 0:41:06"and contribute what they can to the grand design of improving natural knowledge
0:41:06 > 0:41:11"and perfecting all philosophical arts and sciences".
0:41:14 > 0:41:18Henry Oldenburg had created a platform, where for the first time,
0:41:18 > 0:41:21scientists could widely share their findings with others.
0:41:23 > 0:41:28So this is the publication, the presentation, of scientific knowledge
0:41:28 > 0:41:35and if you step through here and follow the Philosophical Transactions on through the years,
0:41:35 > 0:41:42you will find all the great names of science publishing their research in here for all to see.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46So, you'll find Newton, you'll find Darwin, you will find Faraday,
0:41:46 > 0:41:53this is where the sum total of human knowledge is stored and archived and rests.
0:41:56 > 0:42:01So, the history of science is laid out for everyone to see, here.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03Isn't that wonderful?
0:42:11 > 0:42:16Nearly 350 years after that first issue was printed,
0:42:16 > 0:42:21the Royal Society still publishes its Philosophical Transactions,
0:42:21 > 0:42:25and every issue of that journal is kept here in their library.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31It's fascinating to just grab them at random.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35Here's one from 1897, and it's on,
0:42:35 > 0:42:38I don't even know the words,
0:42:38 > 0:42:42"afferent and efferent tracks of the cerebellum",
0:42:42 > 0:42:45and the regeneration of nerves.
0:42:45 > 0:42:52And then you can go, here's one, 1895, "organic oxymides,
0:42:52 > 0:42:57"or the organisation of the fossil plants of the coal measures".
0:43:00 > 0:43:03Now, obviously there's no point in finding interesting things out
0:43:03 > 0:43:06about the natural world and keeping them to yourself,
0:43:06 > 0:43:10not telling anyone, but there's much more to publishing than that.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13This is an edition of the Philosophical Transactions
0:43:13 > 0:43:16of the Royal Society from 1861,
0:43:16 > 0:43:19and one of the papers here by John Tyndall
0:43:19 > 0:43:22is one of the first pieces of research
0:43:22 > 0:43:25on what we now call the "greenhouse effect",
0:43:25 > 0:43:28the way that different gases absorb heat.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32There is table after table of results,
0:43:32 > 0:43:36but he also describes precisely how he got those results,
0:43:36 > 0:43:42and there's a beautiful diagram of his apparatus,
0:43:42 > 0:43:48and this is there so that anyone else reading this paper, if they're sceptical about the results
0:43:48 > 0:43:53or even if they just want to check them, can rebuild the apparatus
0:43:53 > 0:43:58and redo the experiments and check that Tyndall didn't make any mistakes.
0:43:58 > 0:44:01So these results are not a matter of opinion, they're here,
0:44:01 > 0:44:04they can be checked by other scientists, they can be verified.
0:44:04 > 0:44:08So, this is how scientific knowledge progresses.
0:44:08 > 0:44:14Publishing is the reason why science gets to our best view of the way that nature works.
0:44:27 > 0:44:31Since the Philosophical Transactions emerged in 1665,
0:44:31 > 0:44:36thousands of journals have been published on every aspect of science.
0:44:39 > 0:44:43Scientific journals have flourished in this way because they can be trusted.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50What's printed in them is as close to a statement of fact as you can hope for.
0:44:53 > 0:44:55And we can trust in that science
0:44:55 > 0:45:00thanks to a unique British-born system of self regulation
0:45:00 > 0:45:03that lies at its heart - peer review.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14Dr Philip Campbell is the editor in chief of the journal, Nature.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18And peer review is central to its reputation
0:45:18 > 0:45:20as one of the greatest journals in the world.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25Could you run through the peer review process,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28and describe exactly how that works?
0:45:28 > 0:45:34So, peer review is an attempt by colleagues, as it were, of the authors,
0:45:34 > 0:45:39their peers, to see whether what these authors have produced looks valid.
0:45:39 > 0:45:43He or she will look at that and really rip it to shreds,
0:45:43 > 0:45:47digging into the data and then coming back to us and saying,
0:45:47 > 0:45:50"I've really looked at this stuff and it's stood up to what I thought."
0:45:50 > 0:45:52Or they'll say it doesn't.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55So, how would you assess the effects of this,
0:45:55 > 0:46:00of the peer review process, just objectively? Does it do what we all want it to do?
0:46:00 > 0:46:06Which is be absolutely objective in a pure assessment of where our scientific knowledge is.
0:46:06 > 0:46:08It's full of little holes, that's how I see it.
0:46:08 > 0:46:12There are all sorts of ways in which bad papers can slip through.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17It's not perfect and I'm sure that there are degrees of bias.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19But I would feel a lot more worried
0:46:19 > 0:46:22if we were retracting a lot of our papers.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24Actually, we retract very few of our papers.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28I believe that's because what we publish is, by and large, robust.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32I really cannot think of a more critically minded group of people than scientists.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42Peer review is not the only service provided by scientific publishing.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47Because the journals are one of the key voices of the scientific community,
0:46:47 > 0:46:49providing a forum for continued debate.
0:46:52 > 0:46:59This continuous interrogation by the scientific community helps sort the good science from the bad.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02Gradually, this gives way to a consensus
0:47:02 > 0:47:06with scientists agreeing on the latest findings and their meaning.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11No paper is the end of the story.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13So, even though it's got the Nature name on it,
0:47:13 > 0:47:16from my point of view, I know that it's only when it's been out there
0:47:16 > 0:47:22and people have really tested it and try to build on it, that we really know whether it's true.
0:47:22 > 0:47:24Global warming is a good example.
0:47:24 > 0:47:28There's an overwhelming scientific consensus that carbon dioxide
0:47:28 > 0:47:31and other emissions into the atmosphere is changing the climate,
0:47:31 > 0:47:36warming the world. So, how did that consensus develop?
0:47:36 > 0:47:38The climate system is enormously complex
0:47:38 > 0:47:41and I don't think there is any single paper that can ever show
0:47:41 > 0:47:45one way or another that climate warming because of carbon dioxide
0:47:45 > 0:47:47or other greenhouse gases is occurring.
0:47:47 > 0:47:51So, it's only over a lot of time and a lot of cumulative evidence,
0:47:51 > 0:47:55and a lot of critical scrutiny that you end up convinced
0:47:55 > 0:47:56that something is really happening.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00I would so love to show that climate change isn't happening
0:48:00 > 0:48:04in a way that I do actually believe threatens my grandchildren's future.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08But, it's so unfortunate
0:48:08 > 0:48:12that we don't seem to be getting papers that show that it's wrong.
0:48:19 > 0:48:21Peer review is an attempt to introduce
0:48:21 > 0:48:25an additional level of rigour to the process of discovery,
0:48:25 > 0:48:29allowing us to distinguish between tested hypotheses and speculation.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38The difference between a book and a scientific journal
0:48:38 > 0:48:42is that, in a book, you're reading an author's opinion.
0:48:42 > 0:48:47Nobody else in the world may agree with the contents of this book and you wouldn't know.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50It's a statement of opinion.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54Whereas a scientific journal has been through some level of checking,
0:48:54 > 0:49:00experts in the field have looked at it and found that it's not obviously wrong.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04So a scientific peer review journal is in a sense a snapshot
0:49:04 > 0:49:09of our best view of the world, of a particular subject, at any given time.
0:49:15 > 0:49:21From Newton's rational approach, to publishing and peer review,
0:49:21 > 0:49:27Britain has arguably had a greater influence on how science is done than any other nation.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35But perhaps that legacy can be seen most clearly in France.
0:49:40 > 0:49:44Or rather, UNDER France,
0:49:44 > 0:49:46and Switzerland.
0:49:50 > 0:49:54This rather unimpressive set of buildings
0:49:54 > 0:49:57might look like a third-rate provincial technical college,
0:49:57 > 0:50:01but housed in them are scientists engaged in what is, without doubt,
0:50:01 > 0:50:06one of the most important experiments ever undertaken.
0:50:12 > 0:50:17Below the ground here, around 100 metres below the ground, is the Large Hadron Collider.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20It's 27 kilometres in circumference.
0:50:20 > 0:50:25Its job is to accelerate protons to 99.9999% the speed of light,
0:50:25 > 0:50:32at which speed they circumnavigate these 27 kilometres 11,000 times a second.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36The protons are collided together, and with each one of those collisions,
0:50:36 > 0:50:37the conditions that were present
0:50:37 > 0:50:41less than a billionth of a second after the universe began, are recreated.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54The sheer audacity of it,
0:50:54 > 0:50:59that human beings might be able to reach back 13.7 billion years
0:50:59 > 0:51:03to discover how the universe evolved, is breathtaking.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10And yet, that's what's being done here on an epic scale.
0:51:16 > 0:51:21The Large Hadron Collider is the most complicated scientific experiment ever built.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27But it's still just an experiment like any other.
0:51:32 > 0:51:34At its heart, there is repeatable process...
0:51:37 > 0:51:39..as with Newton's prism.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45There are teams of people dedicated to making detailed measurements,
0:51:45 > 0:51:48as Cavendish did with his flammable air.
0:51:48 > 0:51:50LOUD BANG
0:51:53 > 0:51:55And the same rigorously logical thought processes
0:51:55 > 0:52:01used by Bill Tutte are, of course, applied here too.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10These are simple principles, yet they hold great power.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20Half of the world's particle physicists, 10,000 of them,
0:52:20 > 0:52:26are gathered here because of the tantalising prospects of what they might discover.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31CERN is now the place to be because everything is happening here.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35New physics, new stuff, supersymmetry, dark matter.
0:52:35 > 0:52:39So we're solving problems which are fundamental to all, all people, everywhere.
0:52:39 > 0:52:44You don't really care where anyone comes from, we all want the same thing.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47And being part of this
0:52:47 > 0:52:49is just...brilliant.
0:52:49 > 0:52:53What do I do? I'm going to have to think about that for a second...
0:52:53 > 0:52:54HE CHUCKLES
0:52:54 > 0:52:56But while one or two of them
0:52:56 > 0:53:00can't remember what they're supposed to be doing individually,
0:53:00 > 0:53:02as a group, the scientists here
0:53:02 > 0:53:05have made one of the most important discoveries in physics.
0:53:10 > 0:53:13Researchers at the Centre for Nuclear Research near Geneva...
0:53:13 > 0:53:16..have just announced in the last few minutes that Higgs boson,
0:53:16 > 0:53:19the so-called God particle, has been glimpsed.
0:53:19 > 0:53:26In July 2012 it was confirmed that a new particle, the Higgs boson, had been detected.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29This elusive piece of the subatomic jigsaw
0:53:29 > 0:53:33is responsible for the masses of the building blocks of the universe.
0:53:34 > 0:53:38The particle is named after British physicist Peter Higgs,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41who worked on the theory some 50 years earlier.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49The discovery is a vindication of the ideas behind CERN,
0:53:49 > 0:53:54but the reason that we can be confident in the discovery
0:53:54 > 0:53:58is the painstaking effort that has gone into the design of the experiments.
0:54:00 > 0:54:08Even to the point of funding two separate teams of researchers, analysing exactly the same things.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13A cross-check so vital that the teams are not allowed to discuss their work,
0:54:13 > 0:54:15even with each other.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20My institute in Manchester is part of an experiment
0:54:20 > 0:54:23about a few hundred metres in that direction called Atlas,
0:54:23 > 0:54:29it's a collaboration of over 160 institutes from 38 countries,
0:54:29 > 0:54:35and together, we designed, we built and we operate that experiment.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38Now, if you go several miles in that direction,
0:54:38 > 0:54:42over to the other side of the LHC there's another collaboration.
0:54:42 > 0:54:46It's called CMS and it's run by different physicists.
0:54:46 > 0:54:51It was designed, built, and it is operated completely independently from Atlas.
0:54:51 > 0:54:55But they're both designed essentially to do the same thing,
0:54:55 > 0:54:58which is to search for new physics like the Higgs boson.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05And because these two groups found exactly the same thing,
0:55:05 > 0:55:09everyone could be confident that the Higgs really had been discovered.
0:55:10 > 0:55:15It's this, the scientific method, that gives CERN
0:55:15 > 0:55:19and all of scientific investigation its power and validity.
0:55:20 > 0:55:25CERN is the best example of what modern, international science has become
0:55:25 > 0:55:29and you see all the basic principles of science
0:55:29 > 0:55:33put into action here, from precision observation to peer review.
0:55:33 > 0:55:39So, I suppose, CERN perfectly embodies all the things that Britain
0:55:39 > 0:55:42over four centuries has given to science.
0:55:48 > 0:55:52Science is one of this country's success stories,
0:55:52 > 0:55:54many of its important characters are British,
0:55:54 > 0:55:59and Britain has always been a place where crucial discoveries are made.
0:56:01 > 0:56:04Newton's theory of gravity, the structure of the atom,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07the form of the DNA molecule,
0:56:07 > 0:56:11all courtesy of a few small islands in the North Atlantic.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20But these great discoveries haven't happened by accident.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29The existence of organisations like the Royal Society
0:56:29 > 0:56:34and the Royal Institution demonstrates that here is a place where enquiring minds are valued,
0:56:34 > 0:56:39and the apparently unknowable is thought worthy of investigation.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45This is also a nation that celebrates curiosity,
0:56:45 > 0:56:49and when combined with a powerful method to investigate nature,
0:56:49 > 0:56:52this has always ensured that British science
0:56:52 > 0:56:56is disproportionately represented amongst the world's best.
0:56:58 > 0:57:03Britain, with only 1% of the world's population and 3% of the investment,
0:57:03 > 0:57:09produces almost 15% of the most influential scientific papers.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13And given that our civilisation is built on science,
0:57:13 > 0:57:18that science is the only way we have of understanding how nature works,
0:57:18 > 0:57:22then it seems to me that Britain's place today
0:57:22 > 0:57:26as the best place in the world to do science
0:57:26 > 0:57:30is something that's worth cherishing, investing in,
0:57:30 > 0:57:32and protecting for the future.
0:57:41 > 0:57:46Next time, I'll be looking at where some of Britain's greatest discoveries came from.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53And asking whether we benefit more from science when we know what we looking for.
0:57:53 > 0:57:58Or whether the best ideas come out of the blue.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd