Information Science

 

 

My first job after graduating was in Information Science for Unilever at Port Sunlight on Merseyside. I had a bruising time in my final exams failing the organic practical test. Despite this I got a degree although not as good as I had hoped. My personal tutor grumbled that students who fail exams were not usually awarded degrees and strongly suggested I should be relieved by the outcome.

Nevertheless my confidence was shaken and I resolved to seek a job which did not involve practical work ( not “on the bench” in the jargon of the time ) After some searching I took the job with Unilever. Information Science was very new and the Unilever laboratory was among the leaders in the field. Essentially the job was in two parts- archiving and indexing research reports, and current awareness. This latter meant keeping project teams abreast of everything they needed to know.

In a sense this was acting as a super librarian. The difference was that we were expected to become close to the scientists in our particular areas, understanding their projects, and actively seeking out information for them. This was a two way process; one way we searched the scientific literature for them and they came to us with questions. The other way we needed to understand their projects well enough to know what literature was important.

There wasn’t much tuition- it was a case of learning on the job. It was a bit easier in that the team of about ten was in transition and four of us were  new. The section manager arranged for all other section managers to individually talk about their current projects which gave us an overview of the laboratory activities. With a total complement of about a thousand and about 250 scientists the activities were many and various. Essentially the laboratory supported the Unilever soap and detergents business so this meant everything from basic surface science to product development and test. There were also active groups supporting engineering, plywood and adhesives and other activities within the interests of a large and diverse company.

I was allocated analysis, engineering and the hard surfaces product development division. This latter covered mainly dishwashing and floor cleaning but as its name suggests any type of hard surface cleaning. This contrasted with personal cleaning and fabric cleaning; the other main product development groups. Almost as an incidental I took on the organisation of the library.

One major weakness was my knowledge of foreign languages. While English is the main language of science others have a role. Despite my weak French and German I became a volunteer abstractor for a major UK journal with the objective of improving. I found this laborious and time consuming and I gave up after a couple of years.

To  keep senior managers informed we took the Financial Times. For a while it was my job to search it first thing before it was circulated. I always felt a job which required newspaper reading first thing on arrival couldn’t be bad ( It was considered bad form to put your feet up on the desk while doing it! )

The job posed many challenges. The project scientists varied a lot in their attitudes from those keen to be helped through to those who scoffed. What made my life difficult was that essentially I always knew much less about the projects than those working on them in the lab- I soon learned to be humble.

The engineering group were easiest. They were company trouble shooters so they had many and varied interests mainly around wear and corrosion. Their job interested me and I relished the compliment their section manager gave to me ( couched in careful language “ quite useful and helpful”.)

An event occurred which was to be very significant for my whole career although I didn’t realise it at the time. The Divisional Manager of Hard Surface Cleaning, Bill Bone, decided to get all his staff together and spend a day brain storming possible advances. He asked me to take notes and produce a list of the ideas. My section manager straight away said I would be overwhelmed and suggested I record the whole session and then abstract  notes afterwards.

This is what I did spending a weekend reviewing the tape and producing a summary of the ideas proposed. Even though I say so myself I finally got a document which reduced a somewhat chaotic discussion to a manageable list of ideas.

Bill Bone obviously at least then knew my name, hopefully thought I had done a decent job, and sometime later suggested it would be good for me to take a secondment to his group for six months to widen my experience; to see life as a consumer rather than a producer of information. My immediate boss agreed. This offer was supported by the deputy lab manager who was my ultimate boss. I had severe doubts but I judged it would not be politic to refuse. Bone was a big wheel in the organisation and a request from him carried the force of an order.

The secondment became a turning point. I enjoyed  product development and I was quite effective. I liked the idea I was the principal investigator rather than simply supporting someone else. I left information science and my secondment grew into a year and then two and then a permanent position. I’ve since spent all my career in some form of product development.

I was fortunate in my first section manager out in the lab, Arthur Johnson. It was his first managerial position. While the other managers in Bone’s division were rather reluctant to take me on, he was willing to take the chance. He soon said how I did my job was up to me as his role was to set the objective and facilitate my work. I got on very well with him; he was quite free with advice, and this was usually sound, but all the time he emphasised that it was my responsibility to meet the objectives as I saw fit. Ironically although we got on well Arthur had little regard for information work. He would say unless it was published in the premier surface science journal he wasn’t interested as it would be beneath him. Regrettably this type of arrogance was quite common and led to quite a bit of wasted effort as work which was known and published was duplicated needlessly.

The part of information work I enjoyed most was the “detective” work in digging for information that wasn’t obvious. The skills I developed then have been useful ever since.

Christmas newsletter

 

 

I was encouraged and amused by an item in the Economist Christmas issue about family newsletters. Now regarded as of some historical merit a small collection has started at the Harvard Schlesinger library on the initiative of an archivist at the US Smithsonian Museum. The item tells the story of a family newsletter begun in 1948 by Marie Harris.

The item goes on to say this is a post war  or later custom when technology permitted relatively simple copying. In fact Marie Harris had to mimeograph her first issues. More recently with computers and printers this has become much easier. I started in the 90’s when I had a computer and printer.

I was always rather put out to get cards from people with whom I was in infrequent contact which just had their names. While it was pleasant to get the card and keep the link alive it was irritating to me than it said nothing other than they were still alive and still willing to stay in contact. Fine as far as it went but I longed for more. This stayed a minor irritation until I began lodging with David and Jean at Bucklebury.

I had just restarted a job with Castrol at their Technology Centre near Pangbourne in Berkshire. This was too far for daily travel from our Midlands home and my newly settled family didn’t want to move. So I was introduced to David and Jean. They had inherited a house at Bucklebury and I rented the granny flat. David was a religious minister at a mission in London where they lived during the week so the house was empty most of the time I was resident as I travelled back at weekends. Periodically David , his family and various friends would stay during the week. David with family and many contacts through the church sent out a Christmas newsletter to keep his many friends informed.

I saw his newsletter and thought it was an excellent idea, and decided to do the same albeit on a smaller scale. David sent out 500 copies but at the most I have sent out is 50 and nowadays it’s more like 25. Annette thinks it is pretentious but I enjoy reading missives from those few we know who send similar newsletters. The amount of news I include has got less as I’ve withdrawn from organisations I was involved with. I have been fortunate to record our grandchildren as they have arrived and some wider family news.

Below is our 2020 letter. It  has less news than previously as we have spent most of the year sheltering from Covid.

Sadly David died some years later trying to save people from a burning car. He was a lovely man with an impish sense of humour.

Beechcroft
Lichfield Road
Hopwas
Tamworth
B78 3AG

01827 63807 and 07789 007194

Philip.hall@philiphall.co.uk

Dear

What a strange year 2020 has been.  We have both been sheltering on grounds of age plus Philip is a stroke survivor. Prior to the first lockdown Martin proved to be very realistic in his advice to the family. As a result we sheltered a couple of weeks before the nation. It appears that Alison had Covid 19 in the summer although she showed none of the symptoms which have been much publicised. It was only after the event with other symptoms her doctor advised she probably had coronavirus.

The first lockdown did prevent us from attending the wedding of Alison and Debajit. They decided to go ahead with the registry office wedding attended only by their children and one friend as witness. Right up until the last minute Frances had hoped to attend just travelling for the day but she decided the risks were too great. Alison and Debajit had hoped to holiday in India including visiting his parents. This proved impossible and sadly Debajit’s mother died in the autumn. At least Alison met her when they visited last year. Alison was very pleased to obtain a long term role with her agrochemicals employer where she now has responsibility for product stewardship Europe wide.

We did visit Whitby in the early autumn. A major objective was to visit Martin’s new house. They had longed for a larger property with a bigger garden. They have moved to a property in a great location in Robin Hood’s Bay which not only has a good garden but a modest amount of additional land. They are already busy planting trees. Their previous house about a half mile away is being retained as a holiday let. This is also the location of Martin’s homeoffice in a converted wash-house. They have taken to keeping hens which Ellen is already adopting as pets.

All the grandchildren have faced great disruption at school. Even this autumn Whitby school had to close for a time. With Ellie taking GCSE next year and Alex the year after this could have serious consequences. Fortunately all are part of the “digital generation”, were well equipped to study at home and have parents who can help..

Annette, as well as painting, has taken to jigsaws in a big way. Lately Philip has been digitizing slides taken many years ago. Lacking an effective slide projector we haven’t seen them for a long time, so much so that we struggle to remember some occasions. It has been very nostalgic to see records of when our children were small.

Like most others we have become used to video calls, initially over WhatsApp but mainly on Zoom. Alison and Frances both have access to full Zoom licences through their employers. Philip’s U3A book group decided to purchase one. The book groups did manage a couple of garden meeting in the summer but even “socially distanced” meetings were a bit awkward

With vaccine progress there is light at the end of long tunnel. To what extent some normality is returned remains to be seen. As well as wishing you a healthy and peaceful new year we add the hope that you “stay safe”

Space X

 

 

Although superficially there is no connection with electric vehicles in fact there is a close connection between Tesla and Space X. The previous post was about electric vehicles and now a post about space travel which appears very different.. The connection is visionary scientist and entrepreneur Elon Musk who leads both. Tesla is a public company and its vast rise in value in the past year sees Musk into the ranks of the super rich. In contrast Space X is his private company, which he started and financed in its early days and which is devoted to space travel. Musk sees mankind’s future as a multi planetary species and is using Space X to develop spaceships to travel to Mars.

Space X, as a private company funded by Musk and a few other wealthy investors has to be as close to a commercial profit making organisation as possible. To this end over at least a decade they have developed Falcon 9. This rocket has contracts from NASA to supply freight to the International Space Station ( ISS )and just in the past year to fly astronauts from the US to the ISS .Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 US astronauts have been transported by Russian Soyuz rocket to the ISS. In addition the Falcon 9 is used as the launch vehicle for many satellites for a variety of customers. These range from the quite small, of a few kg, up to communications satellites of several thousands of kg.

Falcon 9 is not the only rocket capable of an orbital capacity of several tons ( competitors include US United Launch Alliance, Europe’s Ariane and Russian Soyuz ) but it has some unique properties. Firstly it uses a cluster of nine engines so failure of one doesn’t fail the whole mission. More importantly the first stage is designed to land back on earth for reuse. This reduces the cost per launch considerably. As Musk has said of the era of throwaway rockets it makes no sense to fly the Atlantic with an aeroplane, junk it and build another to fly back.

The fuel necessary to fly back to earth does impose a limitation on the weight carried to orbit but the savings in cost are large. This saving means Space X can offer orbital capability much cheaper than other companies or organisations. The saving is such that Space X can offer launches for less than 20% the price charged by others. This has led to Space X capturing a large market share over the past few years.

Another string to the bow at Space X is the development of Starlink; many hundreds of satellites in low earth orbit to provide wireless links to the internet. This should bring internet capability to remote locations where wired or conventional wireless links are impractical. Starlink should not confused with existing high ( or  geostationary ) satellites which provide expensive internet connections with high latency. Latency is the measure of the time taken from computer to internet backbone. Radio waves travel at the speed of light but even though this is very fast  a round trip of nearly 50000 miles to high earth orbit takes far too long for many applications. A round trip of 1000 miles permits much more use for example making internet multiplayer gaming possible. The investment required for world wide coverage is estimated at about £10 bn. Space X is moving stepwise and is just starting consumer testing in a limited area of southern Canada and  the northern US.

For those few customers who need a higher orbital capacity Space X has Falcon Heavy which essentially is three Falcon 9 linked together giving an orbital capacity in the high teens of tons. Famously the first trial launch of Falcon Heavy carried a Tesla car as payload rather than the more usual inert weight of concrete. Musk amused himself by for example fixing a “Don’t panic” notice to the dashboard of the car.

Musk is both a humourist and a fan of science fiction. In naming the barges which act as landing platforms for Falcon 9 first stages he has chosen names with the style of Iain Banks, a science fiction author. So one is called “Of course I still love you” and another “First read the instructions”.

Having successfully developed Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Space X is now developing a Mars spaceship called Starship. This is far larger than anything built to date, far larger even than the immense Saturn 5 which carried the Apollo missions to the moon in the 60’s and 70’s.

Starship has been in development for just over a year. The first serious Starship flight has just happened. A prototype with three engines instead of six flew to 2 miles high , turned on its side, descended and then flipped into the upright position ready for landing. Fuel was not properly supplied for landing so the prototype  crashed ( Among the cognoscenti this is known as a RUD for Rapid Unintended Disassembly; sounds so much better )  Starship is massive, the height of a 10 storey building, but in use it will set above a booster first stage larger still. Hopefully an unmanned Mars mission will be possible in 2026.

A feature of the Space X ethos is that they are very open about progress. Most flights are streamed live. A small ecosystem of Space X watchers has grown up around the assembly site at Boca Chica in Texas. This site is quite open and cameras are trained on it day and night. It would be no exaggeration to say Musk has cult status and probably a dozen Youtube channels devote themselves to the activities of Space X. These include a channel regularly overflying the site. Some channels devote themselves to all of  Musk’s activities while others focus on particular facets.

Incidentally while the name Space X is now vey widely used the company is actually called Space Explorations. The company is both large and costly. While Musk has now the money to go a long way he will probably rely on some kind of collaboration in the future.

Electric Cars

 

 

With the government banning sale of new petrol and diesel engine cars from 2030 this throws new emphasis on electric cars. Although there were other possibilities for carbon free car engines these seem to have faded from view with electric having established itself. There are two types of electric car, battery electric ( BEV ) and hybrid. Hybrid cars have both a petrol engine and an electric battery. Hybrids are to be phased out by 2035. There are several ways of arranging hybrids eg. Some can only be charged from the petrol engine ( so called self charging ) where as others can also be charged by mains electricity ( PHEV )

At present in the UK both types sell in about equal numbers although their sales are still a small fraction of total car sales.

Battery electric cars have been brought to public attention by one brand, which is the first new car company to be founded in nearly a century, Tesla. About a half of all BEV are made by Tesla. Tesla was founded by a remarkable man in Elon Musk who still owns a large chunk of the company.

Elon Musk became a wealthy man by starting one of the companies which became PayPal. With both science and business training Musk used his wealth to found Tesla in the early years of the century. He strongly believes that mankind needs to tackle low carbon energy to combat global warming and he sees BEV as part of the solution. As well as cars Tesla is also concerned in solar energy and the use of battery storage for both domestic and grid use. As a restless entrepreneur Musk has a private space company , Space X, rapid transport interests in Hyperloop and research company Neuralink . Musk has strong beliefs in things like the need for mankind to expand beyond earth. While many are sceptical Musk has the money and ability to see things past development . What separates Musk from idle dreamers is that he thinks things through and then carries them through. He is the Thomas Edison of the 21^st century.

Tesla is no ordinary car company. The range is deliberately futuristic in style. The cars are largely controlled by elaborate software. Almost all functions are controlled from one large touchscreen on the dash. There are no normal instruments. The cars are internet enabled and the controlling software is updated over the internet as new possibilities become available. For extra money new Tesla cars have self driving functions while for many years limited self driving has been available as Autopilot. Tesla has strong views on self driving avoiding the very expensive technology used by some competitors. Although Tesla cars are already built on the scale of hundreds of thousands the company is building giant factories ( Gigafactories ) to produce millions.

The big problem with BEV is the battery. Almost all use lithium ion technology which is the latest and best. Batteries are expensive; costs are about $100 kWh. However the cost to recharge using untaxed electricity is modest. Overall electric cars require less maintenance and running costs are much less than with an internal combustion engine ( ICE )  car.

The other issue with batteries is weight. While petrol supplies a lot of energy per unit weight batteries are hugely less energy dense. This means that to provide a respectable range the battery is large, heavy and expensive. To an extent the weight issue can be mitigated by placing the battery low in the vehicle lowering its centre of gravity. Tesla have pioneered the approach of the battery being flat and under the vehicle floor which keeps the weight as low as possible. While heavy, Tesla cars have good roadholding assisted by the low centre of gravity.

Generally BEV are expensive. Cheaper BEV have small batteries which in turn means shorter range. Tesla started the company making very expensive, top of the range cars. Their mid range car introduced more recently is still quite expensive at possibly £35,000 for bottom of the range ( no UK prices at present )

The big performance advantage of BEV is acceleration. Unlike internal combustion engines electric motors can supply maximum torque at zero revs. Tesla cars are very rapid and have special battery settings ( ludicrous mode ) which enables a higher than usual current to be drawn from the battery. This gives acceleration as good or better than supercars.

The Tesla Model 3 ( the mid range model ) gives better all round performance than even the best ICE car in independent tests,

One feature of Tesla cars is the flexibility in purchase choices. It is easy to provide all wheel drive or to provide options in battery size.

 Massive research is being devoted to battery development This is delivering modest improvements in similar types to existing batteries leading to perhaps 5-10% range gains. There are types in development which promise much more if various problems can be overcome. To address both the expense problem and raw material issues there has been a lot of interest in types of Lithium ion cell which avoid expensive or rare raw materials. One such is cobalt where the additional issue is the source is in a third world country known for abysmal labour standards. There is a trade off where less expensive and more common raw material comes with a performance penalty

Considered as a system any switch to electric vehicles will require suitable power points to be made widely available. It is common for electric car use to require overnight charging ready for use the next day. This is usually in the owners garage. Fast recharging has been developed for long trips. The latest fast chargers can recharge a battery at 15% back to 85% in about 30 minutes. Electric car makers often talk about the time to drink a coffee as a reasonable time. Generally batteries are not fast charged beyond 85% or so because of the risk of damage. There are few fast chargers at present.

Well established ICE car makers are bringing electric vehicles to market. It seems that 2020-21 will see many new models. At present Tesla has superior BEV technology and is dominating the market. Tesla are doing a lot of battery development but it remains to be seen how others will react