John Desmond Bernal(1901 — 1971)
John Desmond Bernal
Royaume-Uni
6 min read
A British physicist and pioneer of X-ray crystallography, he applied this method to the study of biological molecules. A committed Marxist scientist, he was also an influential historian and theorist of science.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1901 in Ireland, died in 1971 in London
- Pioneer of X-ray crystallography applied to biological molecules in the 1930s
- Studied the structure of water, proteins, and viruses, paving the way for molecular biology
- Author of the influential work *The Social Function of Science* (1939)
- Trained renowned scientists such as Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin
Works & Achievements
A bold speculative essay on the future of humanity, space conquest and the augmentation of the human body. It influenced science fiction and futurological thinking.
Together with Dorothy Crowfoot, Bernal obtained the first X-ray image of a protein crystal. This breakthrough laid the foundations of structural molecular biology.
Bernal and Isidor Fankuchen analysed this virus using X-rays, showing that a biological entity can have a regular, crystalline structure.
A founding work on the organisation and planning of scientific research in the service of society.
A major scientific contribution to the preparation of D-Day, through the study of beaches, tides and floating structures.
A vast synthesis tracing the evolution of science in connection with economic and social transformations, from a Marxist perspective.
Anecdotes
Nicknamed "Sage" by his Cambridge classmates, John Desmond Bernal had a reputation for encyclopedic knowledge: it was said he could speak authoritatively on almost any subject, from physics to the history of religions. The nickname stayed with him all his life.
In 1934, together with his young colleague Dorothy Crowfoot (the future Nobel laureate Dorothy Hodgkin), Bernal achieved the first X-ray diffraction photograph of a protein crystal, pepsin. The key was keeping the crystal moist in its liquid: an insight that opened the way to molecular biology.
During the Second World War, this theoretical physicist was called upon to help prepare the Normandy Landings: he studied the beaches, the tides, and contributed to the design of the "Mulberry" artificial harbours. It is said that he flew over the coast himself to check the nature of the seabed.
A committed Communist and peace activist, Bernal received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1953. His political commitments earned him both admiration and sharp criticism, particularly when he defended the controversial theories of the Soviet biologist Lysenko.
In 1929, at just 28 years old, Bernal published *The World, the Flesh and the Devil*, a speculative essay in which he imagined humans living in space inside giant spheres and enhanced by technology. These ideas later influenced many science-fiction writers.
Primary Sources
The pepsin crystals yield diffraction images of remarkable richness in detail, showing that the protein molecule possesses a definite and regular internal structure.
Science has ceased to be the occupation of a few isolated individuals and has become a major social institution, whose organisation and direction concern society as a whole.
There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and the human mind oscillates between the two.
Science is not only a body of knowledge but a human activity, inseparable from the economic and social conditions of each era.
Key Places
Bernal's hometown, in a family of Catholic farmers of Sephardic descent. He spent his childhood there before studying in England.
Bernal studied here and later taught crystallography. It was here that he built a school of young researchers, including Dorothy Hodgkin.
Laboratory where Bernal worked alongside William Henry Bragg, a pioneer of X-rays, early in his career.
Evening university where Bernal was a professor of physics from 1938. There he led a renowned structural biology laboratory.
City where Bernal carried out the bulk of his scientific and activist career, and where he died in 1971.
