ASPE distinguished contributor — 1990

ASPE distinguished c o n t r i b u t o r 1990 Professor R. V. Jones The American Society for Precision Engineering made its 1990 Distinguished Contributor Award to Professor R. V. Jones. Professor Jones has led a distinguished career and made significant contributions in a number of fields. During World War II he was responsible for Scientific Intelligence in the British armed forces; he was decorated with the CB and CBE and awarded the Medal of Freedom and the Medal for Merit by the President of the United States. In 1 946 he became Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen where he made important contributions in both scientific research and education. His work in the field of precision instrument design is world renowned. Professor Jones is a Fellow of the Royal Society and has been the recipient of many awards, including the Duddell Medal of the Physical Society and the Hartley medal of the Institute of Measurement and Control. His publications, mostly scientific papers, have been numerous and well recognized. 'Most Secret War' (published in the US as 'The Wizard War') about his experiences in Scientific Intelligence was an international best seller and the subject of a BBC television series. His more recent book 'Instruments and Experiences' is of particular interest to all precision engineers. Professor Jones has graciously provided a transcript of his Distinguished Contributor lecture.

Address to the 1990 Annual Meeting, The American Society for Precision Engineering, Rochester, New York, USA 26 September, 1990 Professor R. V. Jones

Your original Board of Directors hoped that, in accepting their award, a Distinguished Contributor would address your annual meeting on a theme of reminiscences of, and reflections on, a career in Precision Engineering. By both education and inclination I started as a physicist, graduating from Oxford in 1932 and proceeding to a doctorate there in 1934. Your hospitality here reminds me of an Oxford incident, when a Cabinet Minister had been invited to speak at a College Dinner. Just before he was due to speak, he happened to drop his notes, which one of his hosts picked up for him. The host could not help glancing at them as he handed them back, and was delighted to read the opening note, which simply PRECISION ENGINEERING

said 'Unworthiness of self'. Today, I share the Cabinet Minister's misgiving, for my contribution to precision engineering has been such a small o n e - a fact which makes me appreciate your Honorary Membership all the more. I am indeed most grateful. My doctorate thesis was concerned with the design and use of infra-red detectors, and in particular thermopiles and bolometers, which were operated in conjunction with galvanometers. At that time, the sensitivity of galvanometers was limited by the ability of the human eye to detect the movement of a spot of light reflected by the galvanometer mirror onto a scale. A few years before, though, inventions by Wilson and Epps in England, Moll and Burger in Holland, and Auger in France had shown that the movement of the reflected spot could be detected by a system in which the eye is replaced by thermoelements or photocells arranged in a pair side by side so that in the zero position the spot falls equally on each half of the pair. If, then, a small current passed through the galvanometer the spot would no longer fall equally on each half, but one would receive more light than the other, and if the pair were connected in opposition in a secondary circuit the resultant current could be made many times greater than that which flowed through the primary circuit. I took up the idea, and it introduced

0141-6359/91/010005-08 © 1991 Butterworth-Heinemann

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