0152 Physics second year
The academic pace increased in my second year at Imperial College, though by then we had reduced to just physics -- getting rid of mathematics. I appreciated not having to do mathematics as a separate subject, but discovered - somewhat to my horror - that most of the physics lectures actually revolved around mathematics rather than anything tangible. Thus, we had subjects such as aerial design -- a specialty of the academic staff, who had previously designed the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. I even designed my own half-wave filter for my hi-fi radio. I spent several years boasting about this to my friends, only to discover that the joint linking it to my hi-fi had broken and the aerial itself wasn't even connected. I was receiving signals only from the lead! That was perhaps typical of the impact of my scientific ability in real life.
The other subjects we covered were more basic topics like optics and thermodynamics. The thing that really tested me, and in the end almost destroyed me, was quantum mechanics. The lecturer started with the Schrödinger Wave Equation - which I did almost understand - but then proceeded to develop this for 26 weeks on the trot. As the board - which was about thirty feet wide and six feet deep - filled up, he used to go through the various elements which he had written on it and decide -- almost at random it seemed to me -- which ones would only be zero or infinity. Then he would start all over again! The end result was a folder of notes about an inch thick which represented development of just one equation. I had never before thrown a course, but I had to in this case; since there was no way I could remember all those meaningless equations for the exam.
Thus we came to the exam. The first part of it was the practical, at which I was usually quite good. The problem was that we were just given a weight, some string, a ruler and a clock; and told to weigh the earth. This was, of course possible, as long you remembered the relevant equation. Thus the whole practical revolved not around what you did with your hands but what you remembered of the equation -- and, of course, I didn't remember anything! Scratch one practical exam!
The theoretical exam was equally nightmarish. The only a part on which I did well, and I think it saved my bacon, was one on electronics -- where my former experience at Farnborough helped out.
The end result was a nasty shock. I was left hanging by my fingernails for the first time in my life. I doubted I would ever make it as far as the third year. It has been recognised that standards in the physics at Imperial were very high and indeed still are; Imperial College now has a clear lead at the top of the academic league tables. In fact then, possibly even now, it was head and shoulders above any other physics department in the United Kingdom.
The ruthless nature of maintaining standards was actually incorporated in concrete. Thus, the first year lecture theatre held 120 students, but the second and third year lecture theatres held only 80 each! This meant that, no matter what happened, a third of the students were to be the thrown out at the end of the first year. And, indeed, that was exactly what happened -- though most were welcomed at other universities where they probably got first-class honours! It has to be remembered that this was the elite physics course of the country. I carried out a rough survey of the physics students, which indicated that three-quarters of the students, including myself, held state scholarships. This inevitably meant that some people with these scholarships were bound to be thrown out at the end of the first year.
The facilities, though, were superb. The new building had everything a physics researcher could ever want. It was even fully air-conditioned, a rarity in those days. The initial fly in the ointment was that, when they switched on the air-conditioning which was primarily designed to keep building dust free, the whole building disappeared in a cloud of dust -- since the builders had not cleaned out the ducts!
In the second year my favourite astronomer, Fred Hoyle, came along to give a lecture -- which was overbooked to such an extent that it had to be relayed to the lecture theatre next door as well. Fortunately I got in to actually see Fred. I think the lecture was about astronomy, for Fred was still trying to save his steady-state theory when the evidence for the Big Bang was first emerging.
However, the questions were nothing to do with this. Fred was, at the time, also opposing the new continental drift theory. Unfortunately Imperial was at the centre of the continental drift theory, and indeed over the succeeding years was proved to be correct. In any case, the audience proceeded to take him apart. Thus was one of the great heroes of my teenage years reduced in stature to a mere mortal before my eyes.
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