Abstract
Together with three other chemists from Cambridge, I was sent in June 1939 to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough under a government scheme which was activated by the imminence of war. One problem I was assigned was to find some chemical vapour which, when mixed with the hydrogen used to inflate barrage balloons (shortly to become a very visible feature in the defence of our cities against enemy bombers), would prevent that gas igniting when the balloon was punctured by a high-explosive incendiary bullet. Because my forthcoming PhD thesis was focused on the nature of explosions in mixtures of hydrogen with oxygen, my combined knowledge of this and of flame propagation, on which a contemporary student was working, was sufficient for me to assert with confidence that no such magic ingredient could exist. An engineer with whom I discussed this matter disagreed on the grounds that ‘every question has an answer’ and I was prevailed upon to embark on experimentation which, predictably, was quite fruitless.
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Notes
R. Nicholson, ‘Research investment: the key to a successful science and engineering-based industry’, Science and Public Affairs, III (1988). 28–36.
Dainton . ‘Demise by size?’, Chemistry in Britain, XXV (1989)pp.781–872.
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© 1991 The British Association for the Advancement of Science
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Dainton, F. (1991). Are Some Science Policy Issues Inevitable, Irresolvable and Permanent?. In: Hague, D. (eds) The Management of Science. British Association for the Advancement of Science. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21275-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21275-0_3
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