Michaelmas Term Lads, Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Dear Richard,

Our time was from 1952.

I think I served the longest of our group, taking another year in the 6th form to improve on my initially poor exam result, I left finally in 1960, with, I think ten O levels. Most on "the instalment plan". I also managed a couple of A's. I would have easily obtained a Scholarship level in Botany, however the school had stopped offering this "elitist" exam.

Dr Toms did not teach divinity, quite the reverse. He once assured us, when one of his better pupils, Len Strom, requested time off to attend a Jewish festival, that he regarded all Religious Observance as Hypocrisy. On the few occasions he conducted morning assembly, following the passing of Mr Dawes, he barely disguised his distaste for the whole business. Although he did not realise it, he was a devotee of The New Religion, the Religion which Dare Not Speak it's Name.

This reticence is not due to Shame, though that would be understandable, but through conceit, though, of course, this is not admitted or even suspected by the Communicant. The Name of the Religion is: Scientism.

It has Prophets, though, again not recognised as such. The best known is Charles Darwin. More recent ones include Arthur C Clark (The Future is Not What it Was, is one of his better quotes). There are scores of others, though lack of space prevents me....

Understandably, very few quantum physicists would be members of this church as they realise All Is Not As It Seems. Now, I have not strayed far from the point of Dr Harold Toms, I assure you.

The first occasion I sat in his laboratory, our regular teacher was away, I noticed the Periodic Table of the elements on a chart hung on his wall. I think I was about 15. Prior to this time, I had not given the material universe much thought, taking everything for granted. Here was a chart of breathtaking simplicity with a few glaring anomalies such as hydrogen oxide.

According to the pattern exhibited by the chart, this chemical should be a gas with a lower boiling point than its analogue, hydrogen sulphide and only exist as liquid at low temperature and under considerable pressure.

Common sense would lead one to expect a light gas combined with the very lightest gas to exist as a gas also. In fact, hydrogen oxide is known as water.

If the unusual property of water at normal temperatures was not enough. Consider what happens when it cools below 4*C. I did not dignify my revelation with anything as pompous as a divine plan, I did feel that there was more to the universe than could be explained by "A Big Bang".

I did tackle Toms with this subject a few years later. To him, of course, there was no mystery at all. Certainly no need or room for external intelligence. We left the discussion with the agreement that it was very lucky for us that hydrogen oxide behaved as it did.

I have written on Mr Alnwick, whose daughter visited me as a patient a couple of years ago. I will try and find the letter I wrote at the time.

Anyway I have written enough for today.
Neil