The seven ages of science. 5/7 Age of the lab.

Radio documentary presented by Lisa Jardine who traces the evolution of scientific endeavour in Britain over the last four centuries. In this episode she explores the 19th century age of the laboratory. Science historian, Simon Schaffer, speaks about early Victorian ideas of training to become a scientist and how, later in the 19th century, Britain had to compete with industrial development in France and Germany. Isobel Falconer, Glasgow Caledonian University, talks about the changes that took place in the coal and textile industries in the 1850s. Simon Schaffer discusses how laboratory science began to lead to popular synthetic items, including foodstuffs like the meat extract Bovril, which in turn showed how much profit could be made from work in chemistry laboratories. Science writer, Philip Ball discusses how women's gowns were dyed using bright, artificial colours, such as mauvine, and how because they were cheap to produce in quantity and range, they became accessible to everyone. Whilst the commercial value of laboratory science helped to push science forward it was the field of high speed communications which made major changes. During the 1850s, attempts to lay transatlantic cables failed, largely due to lack of knowledge amongst engineers. A large amount of money was lost and there was a pressing need to make changes. In the 1860s, physicists began setting up large physics laboratories to train engineers and undertake research. This was a success, particularly in solving problems by scaling, simulating and testing ideas under laboratory conditions before applying them. This model encouraged others, and in the 1860s and 1870s many British universities acquired physics laboratories. Cambridge University's resistant approach to this is discussed. Eventually, Cambridge's chancellor William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, provided a large donation for a purpose built laboratory. He was also in charge of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, and proposed a series of radical ideas to overhaul school science and scientific investment. In 1874, Cambridge's Cavendish laboratory opened, and James Clerk Maxwell was chosen to lead it as the professor of experimental physics. Women were admitted as university students in 1880, but largely excluded from laboratories, so the women's colleges established the Balfour Laboratory which produced a steady flow of women scientists from 1884-1914. Simon Schaffer talks about the importance of laboratories for scientific improvement. Philip Ball, discusses the importance to scientific development of having a centralised place to develop science as a shared enterprise. Isobel Falconer discusses how the remoteness of the laboratory could also be a drawback with the public not always trusting scientists. Simon Schaffer considers the emerging figure of the scientist in popular culture. At the end of the programme, Lisa Jardine briefly mentions the Sanger Institute's sequencing of the human genome in regard to how advanced laboratories now are. But, on the whole, she regrets that science is now seen as separate and beyond the understanding of most.