Science in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has been one of the scientific great powers of the twentieth century. Since 1901 it has obtained about the same number of Nobel Prizes as Germany, and about half the number of the United States; all other countries are way behind. The United Kingdom’s comparative performance has, on some measures, improved during the twentieth century, with a definite relative decline setting in only since the 1960s (see Tables 39.1 and 39.2). A qualitative analysis also shows that twentieth-century British science should be taken seriously. To take an index given undue weight, the United Kingdom launched the first serious atomic bomb project; and became the third nuclear power. By any reasonable standard the United Kingdom was, and to some extent is, a force to be reckoned with in world science, and worth studying for that reason. However, the strength of British science in the twentieth century does need some stressing. It has been overshadowed by the emphasis on the ‘decline’ of the United Kingdom’s scientific, as well as military and industrial power. It is important to note, however, that Britain’s industrial decline is much exaggerated, and that in any case scientific power remains everywhere more concentrated than industrial or military power. The British case should be treated as one of a small handful of scientific great powers of the twentieth century; indeed we should ask the same questions of British science as we do of US science, and indeed of Soviet and German science. There is no typical case from which the others are deviations. It is certainly not to be studied as a case of exceptional resistance to science, or of the failure to turn scientific advantage into economic growth. Table 39.1 Number of British Nobel Prize winners.

	Chemistry	Physics	Medicine	Total
1901–1910	2	2	1	5
1921–1930	3	2	2	7
1931–1940	1	3	3	7
1945–1954	3	5	4	12
1955–1964	6	0	7	13
1965–1974	4	4	2	10
1975–1984	3	1	3	7
1981–1990	0	0	3	3
1901–1990 *	22	20	23	65

*

Note that these figures are not the sum of the above.

NB: This is a table of the number of prize winners: on a number of occasions two or more British scientists won the same prize in the same year. The allocation of prizes does not correspond to obvious modern disciplinary categories. Thus Rutherford, Soddy, and Aston won Chemistry Prizes; the three British DNA prizes were for Medicine; Sanger (twice), Kendrew and Perutz, and Hodgkin won prizes for Chemistry. In addition Britain won 8 Literature and 9 Peace Prizes, as well as 5 Economics Prizes (since 1969 only). The record in Economics is outstanding, while the Peace and Literature record is meagre. However, contributions to peace and literature have not required the sort of infrastructure science has.

Table 39.2 Significant Events in Science, Medicine and Technology.

	1901–45
	UK	Ger	USA	Total
Anthropology and Archeology	2	1	7	16
Astronomy	17	10	51	108
Biology	34	11	49	125
Chemistry	10	21	37	93
Earth Sciences	8	8	11	36
Mathematics	14	14	5	56
Medicine	20	18	44	112
Physics	56	36	43	189
Technology	20	32	66	142
Total	181	151	313	877
	20%	17%	35%	100%

	1945–1965
Anthropology and Archeology	2	–	4	11
Astronomy	14	1	34	72
Biology	11	2	35	58
Chemistry	5	2	7	19
Earth Sciences	2	–	13	15
Mathematics	–	–	3	4
Medicine	4	1	19	25
Physics	5	4	39	52
Technology	6	–	23	36
Total	49	10	177	294*
*does not add in source
	17%	3%	60%	100%

	1966–1988
Anthropology and Archeology	7	1	11	28
Astronomy	5	3	62	89
Biology	10	–	52	77
Chemistry	6	7	16	36
Earth Sciences	2	–	9	16
Mathematics	1	–	10	14
Medicine	8	4	40	61
Physics	5	6	21	48
Technology	9	–	20	32
Total	55	21	241	401
	14%	5%	60%	100%

Source: compilation by Mansel Davies from Alexander Hellemans and Bryan Bunch, The Timetables of Science (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988) as reported in ‘A Thousand Years of Science and Scientists: 988 to 1988,’ History of Science Vol. 33 (1995), pp. 239–51.