Ramsay, Morton and Rayleigh

If you ask the students of the Chemical Engineering Department attending tomorrow the Ramsay dinner who William Ramsay was or what he did, how many would give you an answer? How many, if you address the enquire to members of the staff? How many, if you pose the question to lecturers or readers?

It is curious how the essence of events, the true meaning of facts fades out or gets distorted drastically. William Ramsay (a born Scottish), chair of the Inorganic Chemistry Department at UCL from 1887 to 1913, got the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his discovery of the rare gases in air (helium, neon, argon, xenon) and the finding out of their location in the Periodic Table. The relevant facts, however, are: first, he was a chemist (not an engineer); second, he was an obsessive experimentalist; and third, in appearance, Ramsay had an open, sincere spirit for collaboration (i.e. daily correspondence with Lord Rayleigh, from the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in the case of argon). John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, in turn, was reported to be an excellent instructor and a developer of experimentalists. Both Rayleigh and Ramsay produce contributions in Physics, Chemistry and Math (i.e. Rayleigh, 446 papers).

Perhaps, it is only in the amount of publications that one can find an avid interest for resemblance within the Ch. Eng. Department of UCL today and, I dare, within many, many others everywhere else. The quality, the genius, unfortunately, cannot be reproduced: it is a general feature of the Academia of today the dissemination of shit.

I find relevant -and, somehow, amusing- that the main figures to who tribute is paid at the Ch.Eng Department of UCL are Ramsay and Frank Morton (another British, this one, a Chemical Engineer, with a clear and proved vocation for teaching; he passed away a few years ago, I believe). The staff of Universities today, with 95% confidence, stops working in labs after their PhDs and, usually, do not give a damn about teaching. Ain't it amusing?

These lines might sound blunt or unfair; I know I am not writing much lately, and this comment might sound unfair but, -you gotta believe me-, it comes from sadness rather than spite.

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