John Desmond Bernal, 10 May 1901 - 15 September 1971

Abstract

John Desmond Bernal lived his life to the full. He liked to say that his biography ought to be written in four colours, on interleaved pages, to show his different activities, fitted together. Oral tradition differs as to the colour of the pages; black and white, certainly for science, red for politics, blue for arts, purple or yellow for his personal life. This biographical note necessarily covers mainly the black and white pages, though others may ultimately prove as important for mankind. In his scientific work he was a great pioneer, whose ideas and early experiments made possible many of the major advances of our time in our understanding of structure and function in physics, chemistry and biology.