Thomas John M. Albemarle Street: Portraits, Personalities and Presentations at The Royal Institution

Oxford University Press, 2021. — 288 p.The Royal Institution of Great Britain is renowned the world over, first, because it is a premier arena for the advancement of new scientific and technological knowledge; and second because it highlights the advance of knowledge of all kinds. It bridges the sciences and the humanities, and as much publicity is given to advances in the arts, archaeology, architecture, drama and literature as to the pure and applied sciences. More famous scientists have lived and worked in the Royal Institution than in any other laboratory in the world. A roll-call includes Rumford, Davy, Faraday, Tyndall, Dewar, Rayleigh, W. H. Bragg, W. L. Bragg and George Porter. Not is it only the home of continuous electricity, it is also the birthplace of many aspects of molecular biology and viruses and enzymology. Some fifteen scientists who have won the Nobel Prize have, at one time or another, worked or lectured at the RI. And eminent individuals, like Howard Carter and Coleridge, have lectured there.Albemarle Street - Portraits, Personalities and Presentations at The Royal institution is a lively and compelling personal selection of the remarkable personalities and achievements of some of the extraordinary scientists and individuals who, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, worked or lectured at 21 Albemarle Street in Mayfair, central London. John Meurig Thomas offers a unique and valuable insight into the history of this prestigious address, having himself lived and worked at the Royal Institution for some twenty years.Sir John Meurig Thomas is Former Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain and the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory, London, and former Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry and Professorial Fellow of King's College, University of Cambridge. John Meurig Thomas was knighted for services to chemistry and the popularisation of science. His biography of Michael Faraday has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Italian. He has received numerous international and national awards for his work, including the Royal Medal of the Royal Society for his contributions to green chemistry and clean technology. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and of the Swedish and Russian Academies of Sciences.