The restless sphere and ( separately ) swearing

 

The restless sphere

This was the title of the BBC documentary in 1957 to detail some British contributions to the International Geophysical year( IGY ). This was actually more like 15 months; a period when a concerted international effort was made to study the earth. The programme was introduced and part narrated by Prince Philip. His recent death caused me to think back to that presentation. I was 14, just before my birthday, which incidentally I shared with Prince Philip. It was a regular family joke to turn up the sound of the National Anthem played on that day.

I was becoming fairly set in my interest in science and technology. I was giving up my boyhood aspirations to become a farmer ( well a tractor driver ) and a pilot ( well enter the RAF ) The IGY  was a bold attempt to couple together many essentially disparate investigations under one over arching umbrella.

The major British contribution, certainly the one which got most publicity was the Trans Antarctic expedition. This was led by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Strictly this was the Commonwealth expedition with Vivian Fuchs as the typical British explorer as the tough gentleman who was equally at home in Whitehall or the field so he looked the part of expedition leader. In fact he had been on several African expeditions before WW11 and post war he had been a geological investigator in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.  The objective was to cross Antarctica using Sno-Cat tractors taking seismic and gravimetric readings along the way. The expedition travelled just over 2000 miles in about a 100 days.

While all the investigations interested me easily the most glamorous was the proposed launch of the first satellite by America using the specially developed Vanguard rocket. In the event this was eclipsed by Sputnik launched by Russia in October 1957. This came as a huge surprise as it wasn’t announced beforehand. The humiliation of the West was completed by the dismal failure of Vanguard. It took a hastily cobbled together launcher based on a military rocket to rescue some American pride with Explorer 1 launch in Jan 1958

Looking back now we can see the enormous strides which have been made since then. In 1957 the concept of plate tectonics was still a theory and the IGY evidence helped to solidify its acceptance in the 1960’s.. This concept of  continents initially formed as one and the gradually very slowly drifting by floating on the underlying mantle has since been widely used to interpret geological evidence. It has become the generally accepted view of the earth’s evolution.

It was artificial satellites which discovered the radiation belts surrounding the earth with instruments carried aboard Explorer 1. Satellites are now used for a multitude of purposes, communication, navigation, earth observation and many others. The most important development by far is climate studies with the growing realisation that carbon in the atmosphere is leading to climate change,

I mentioned above the presence of Prince Philip in the “Restless Sphere” broadcast.  He had a lively interest in science and technology evidenced for example by helping “New Scientist” magazine both as contributor and patron. To some small extent he fuelled my own interest which led on to a fulfilling career.

Swearing

I’m in favour of swearing but not in front of others. An effective bout of swearing relieves the feeling of distress or disappointment. Although futile in its effect it succeeds in a temporary relief of ones psyche.

I recall our English teacher at secondary school lecturing us on swearing which he attributed to a lack of vocabulary. This is not a thesis with which I agree. He pointed out that many ( what would now be considered mild ) swear words were connected with religion. To express an oath of “god’s blood” now reduced to bloody was deeply shocking even sacrilegious in an age where faith was nearly universal. A range of other swearing such as damnation has similar origin and effect.

More recently the so called 4 letter words have become distressingly common even in common discourse. By their very use the shock value is blunted. I hope we have reached a time when even a comedian uttering f..k  no longer arouses a laugh.

For myself I find I swear like my father. He would never use 4 letter words but b….r was relatively common . I find now that I’m rather inhibited in using 4 letter words but like my father I regard b….r as relatively mild. I note that as religious exclamations are now mild in this age where faith is not so significant that most modern swearing has sexual connotation.

It seems that maybe Americans are somewhat unusual in that refences to one’s mother are somehow deeply disturbing thus s-o-b and the litany of related swear words scarcely ever occurs in England while if literature is to be believed these are common in the USA

I remember being quite shocked early in my career when a ( lady ) technician I was working with remarked quite casually that I swore a lot. The task I was involved with was a frustrating one at times but I regarded my swearing a quite mild and without obscenities. If I had imagined that the technician found it shocking I would ( I hope ) refrained. I think she was referring to my use of b….r which perhaps was unusual. The lady concerned was not protesting but voicing her observation.. I hope I was more careful in future.