Themes

Natural world


Andrew Gilchrist (centre) as student at Met Office training college, 1951 © Crown copyright 1951

Education

What inspires someone to become a scientist and what do scientists remember most about their training?
Dennis Higton (right) and colleagues with a Gloster E.28/39, Britain’s first jet aircraft, in the 1940s

Aircraft

British scientists and engineers produced some of the most iconic aircraft of the twentieth century including the Harrier Jump Jet and the V-bombers.
Mike Forrest with handmade laser c.1964

Lab work

Asking scientists and technicians to describe what they do in their laboratories reminds us that science is work.
Cyril Hilsum peering at laser, 1962

Instruments

Instruments are crucial to scientists, allowing them to measure and observe things they cannot directly see for themselves.

"What’s fun about programming? It’s problem solving, keeping in your head what’s actually going on in the machine, and being very, very accurate, because the machine does exactly what you tell it to do, even if it’s not what you meant."

- Mary Lee Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist

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Scientists' lives

Career

Working lives

Science and society

Technologies

VOICES OF SCIENCE is the website of the Oral History of British Science programme, led by National Life Stories in association with the Science Museum, and with support from the Arcadia Fund