John Desmond Bernal

Born May 10, 1901, in Nenagh. English physicist and public figure. Member of the Royal Society of London (1937).

Bernal graduated from Cambridge University in 1922. Between 1923 and 1927 he worked at the Davy Faraday Laboratory in London. He was at Cambridge University from 1927 to 1937. From 1937 he was a professor at London University. He worked in the area of antiaircraft defense between 1939 and 1942 and from 1942 to 1945 was a scientific adviser to the joint operations staff.

Bernal’s main scientific work is in the area of crystallography. He has investigated the structures of graphite, metals, water, styrenes, hormones, vitamins, proteins, viruses, and building materials, especially cements. In 1933 he presented the so-called Bernal model of ice, which made it possible to explain the behavior of water in all compounds. He is also the author of works on the theory of the liquid state. He wrote works on the role and place of science in the life of society, dealing with the philosophical significance of science and the interrelations of science, technology, and social conditions, and on the influence of science on social development from the standpoint of dialectical materialism; he showed the distinctive features of the development of science under capitalism and socialism. His book The Social Function of Science (1938) initiated a new area of knowledge—science studies. He is an active fighter for peace and has been the executive president of the Presidium of the World Council of Peace (1959–65), vice-chairman of the World Federation of Scientific Workers, and president of the International Union of Crystallography (1963–66). He is a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958) and of many other scientific academies throughout the world. In 1953 he won the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Between Nations.