John Randall (physicist)

Sir John Turton Randall,DSc, FRSE
Born	23 March 1905 Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, England
Died	16 June 1984 Edinburgh
Nationality	British
Citizenship	United Kingdom of Great Britain
Alma mater	University of Manchester and The Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge
Known for	High-power, multi-cavity magnetron for British and American radar stations in WWII, DNA structure determination, neutron diffraction studies of labelled proteins
Awards	Knight of the British Empire, FRSE John Price Wetherill Medal (1958)
Scientific career
Fields	Experimental physicist and biophysicist
Institutions	GEC, The Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, King's College in the University of London and Dept. of Zoology at the University of Edinburgh
Doctoral advisor	Nobel-prize winner, Sir-William Lawrence Bragg, Head of The Cavendish Laboratory
Doctoral students	49

Sir John Turton Randall, FRS, FRSE, (23 March 1905 – 16 June 1984) was a British physicist and biophysicist, credited with radical improvement of the cavity magnetron, an essential component of centimetric wavelength radar, which was one of the keys to the Allied victory in the Second World War. It is also the key component of microwave ovens. He also led the King's College London team which worked on the structure of DNA; his deputy, Professor Maurice Wilkins, shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, together with James Watson and Francis Crick of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, for the determination of the structure of DNA. His other staff included Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling, Alex Stokes and Herbert Wilson, all involved in research on DNA.

Origins

John Randall was born on 23 March 1905 at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, the only son and the first of the three children of Sidney Randall, nurseryman and seedsman, and his wife, Hannah Cawley, daughter of John Turton, colliery manager in the area. He was educated at the grammar school at Ashton-in-Makerfield and at the University of Manchester, where he was awarded a first-class honors degree in physics and a graduate prize in 1925, and an MSc in 1926. He married Doris, daughter of Josiah John Duckworth, a colliery surveyor, in 1928. They had one son.

From 1926 to 1937 Randall was employed on research by the General Electric Company at its Wembley laboratories, where he took a leading part in developing luminescent powders for use in discharge lamps. He also took an active interest in the mechanisms of such luminescence.

The Magnetron

By 1937 he was recognized as the leading British worker in his field, and was awarded a Royal Society fellowship to the University of Birmingham, where he worked on the electron trap theory of phosphorescence in Professor Marcus Oliphant's physics faculty. When the war began in 1939 Randall transferred to the large group working on centimeter radar. At the time limited transmitter output was the greatest single obstacle in the development of this type of radar.

Simple two-pole magnetrons had been developed in the 1920s but gave relatively low power outputs. A more powerful multi-cavity resonant magnetron had been developed in 1935 by Hans Erich Hollmann in Berlin. By 1940 Randall and Dr Harry Boot produced a working prototype similar to Hollman's cavity magnetron, but added liquid cooling and a stronger cavity. However Randall and Boot soon managed to increase its power output 100-fold. As Prof. W. E.Burcham recollects:

John Randall and Harry Boot, two young physicists were assigned to the task. Within two months (21 February 1940) they had produced a new kind of magnetron, one with eight concentric cavities… Randall got the inspirational idea of using eight cavities when he researched the design of the original Hertz oscillator which was an open single ring. Randall saw that this structure could be extrapolated into a cylinder and then into eight resonating chambers

Later James Sayers provided the final breakthrough to a practical magnetron device for use in radar stations. At the same time, the Telefunken Company of Berlin was also 'searching' for such a device, but has apparently met with much less success than the British inventors or the Romanian Professor Theodor V. Ionescu who was also engaged at the time in the same quest for a powerful magnetron. However, the split anode magnetron had first been developed in 1921 by Dr. A.E.Hull at GE Company in USA; also in 1921, Haben, who was working in Germany, developed a similar device that worked on a 3 cm wavelength. A strong competitor of the former inventors was also Dr. H.E.Hollman who registered many patents between 1925 and 1935 that documented devices related to magnetron development.

The military importance of a high-power multi-cavity magnetron was immense to the British defense at first, and then to the American AirForce offense in the North Sea and the Pacific. Centimetric radar could detect much smaller objects. The combination of the small-sized cavity magnetron, small antennas and high resolution allowed small high quality radars to be installed in aircraft to detect submarines and other aircraft. This advance, when combined with improved naval intelligence, eventually defeated the German U-boats and so won the Battle of the Atlantic. This allowed Britain to be supplied and then re-armed from across the Atlantic, ultimately allowing for the liberation of continental Europe. Other applications of radar included aerial interception of bombers at night, better navigation of Allied bombers (H2S radar), better anti-aircraft batteries and naval gunnery and proximity fuzes. One million magnetrons were produced by Bell Labs alone in the USA before the end of the war, and many millions since have been incorporated into cookers and a wide range of other appliances. An official American historian described Magnetron Number 12 that was taken to the USA in September 1940 as follows: "When the members of the Tizard Mission brought one to America in 1940, they carried the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores."

As an important spin off from the magnetron war efforts at MIT was, shortly after WWII, American physicist Erwin L. Hahn's discovery at MIT of the nuclear magnetic resonance phenomenon, a key tool for modern chemistry and physics research.

In 1943 Randall left Oliphant's physical laboratory at Birmingham to teach for a year in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. In 1944 Randall was appointed professor of natural philosophy at University of St Andrews and began planning research in biophysics (with Maurice Wilkins) on a small Admiralty grant.

King's College London

In 1946, John T Randall- who had as Ph.D. advisor the Nobel-Prize winning physicist, William Lawrence Bragg- was appointed Head of Physics Department at King’s College in London. He then moved to the Wheatstone chair of physics at King's College London, where the Medical Research Council set up the Biophysics Research Unit with Randall as the director (now known as Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics) at King's College London. During his term as Director the experimental work leading to the discovery of the structure of DNA was made there by Rosalind Franklin, Raymond Gosling, Maurice Wilkins, Alex Stokes and Herbert R. Wilson. He assigned Raymond Gosling as a PhD student to Dr. R. Franklin to work on DNA structure by X-ray diffraction.

Maurice Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine with James Watson and Francis Crick; Rosalind Franklin had already died from cancer in 1958.

In addition to the X-Ray diffraction work the unit conducted a wide-ranging programme of research by physicists, biochemists, and biologists. The use of new types of light microscopes led to the important proposal in 1954 of the sliding filament mechanism for muscle contraction. Randall was also successful in integrating the teaching of biosciences at King's College.

In 1951 he set up a large multidisciplinary group working under his personal direction to study the structure and growth of the connective tissue protein collagen. Their contribution helped to elucidate the three-chain structure of the collagen molecule. Randall himself specialized in using the electron microscope, first studying the fine structure of spermatozoa and then concentrating on collagen. In 1958 he began to study the structure of protozoa. He set up a new group to use the cilia of protozoa as a model system for the analysis of morphogenesis by correlating the structural and biochemical differences in mutants.

Later years

In 1970 he retired to Edinburgh University, where he formed a group which applied a range of new biophysical methods, such as coherent neutron diffraction studies of protein crystals in ionic solutions in heavy water, to study by neutron diffraction and scattering various biomolecular problems, such as the proton exchange of protein residues by deuterons. He continued such work with characteristic vigor supported by a few loyal assistant crystallographers until his death.

In science Randall was not just original but a maverick. He made extremely important contributions to biological science when he set up, at the right time, a large multidisciplinary biophysical laboratory where his staff were able to achieve much success. However his treatment of Rosalind Franklin upon her leaving King's for Birkbeck College is still a matter of debate and controversy, as already touched upon above.

His direct, personal contributions to experimental biophysics at a later stage were possibly not as outstanding as those he made in experimental physics early in his life. In science, and elsewhere, he showed most of the times excellent judgement. He had a rare, unusual capacity to see the essentials of a situation and also had outstanding skill in obtaining funds and buildings for research, possibly owed in part to his support by his former X-ray adviser Sir William Lawrence Bragg. He was thought by some to be ambitious and to enjoy 'political' power, but his ambitions were actually motivated only by the common good, as in the case of the magnetron invention that has been said many times to have saved Great Britain from nazi invasion and possible occupation. On the other hand, he was a very warm and considerate person, of unusual modesty, and also with a deep understanding of physics, especially in the experimental areas of X-ray and neutron diffraction. The informal and democratic side of his character may have appeared to some to contrast with his natural self-assertion. He showed great dedication and enthusiasm in his scientific work, just as he did in the extensive gardening he much enjoyed in his spare time in Edinburgh.

Honors

In 1938 Randall was awarded a DSc by the University of Manchester. In 1943 he was awarded (with H. A. H. Boot) the Thomas Gray memorial prize of the Royal Society of Arts for the invention of the cavity magnetron. In 1945 he became Duddell medallist of the Physical Society of London and shared a payment from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors for the magnetron invention, and in 1946 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society and became its Hughes medalist. Further awards (with Boot) for the magnetron work were, in 1958, the John Price Wetherill medal of the Franklin Institute of the state of Pennsylvania and, in 1959, the John Scott award of the city of Philadelphia. In 1962 he was knighted, and in 1972 he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

It can be said that John Randall's contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA has effectively gone 'unrecognized' although the award of a third of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine to Maurice Wilkins reflected the contribution made by all the members of staff in the King's College Laboratory; the new DNA sculpture at Clare College, Cambridge has the following words: On the base: "These strands unravel during cell reproduction. Genes are encoded in the sequence of bases."and "The double helix model was supported by the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.", as well as on the helices: "The structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson while Watson lived here at Clare." and "The molecule of DNA has two helical strands that are linked by base pairs Adenine - Thymine or Guanine - Cytosine."

So no mention is made of either Sir Lawrence Bragg [already a Nobel Prize winner] director of the Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory or Sir John Randall, the director of King's College's laboratory, London [not a Nobel Prize winner]; in 1962 four members of the Cavendish Laboratory received shares of Nobel Prizes: Francis Crick, John Kendrew, Max Perutz, and James Watson - while only one member of King's College, London received a share of the Nobel Prize (Maurice Wilkins) and that was shared with Crick and Watson. Unfortunately Rosalind Franklin had already died of cancer in 1958, possibly related to her exposure to X-rays in her experimental work; subsequent debate has been whether Franklin 'deserved' a share of the Nobel Prize posthumously. Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.

According to Wilkins, Randall wanted to be more directly involved in the work leading to the discovery of the structure of DNA but yet had previously turned down Francis Crick from working alongside Wilkins at King's College, London; the loss of Crick to King's was a gain to the Cavendish Laboratory, but the unofficial liaison between Crick and Wilkins helped the Cavendish Laboratory 'win' both of the DNA races: with Linus Pauling and with King's College, London.

Sir John Randall missed his opportunity to also add his own name to the double helix structure of A-DNA—in the same way as Crick, Watson, and Wilkins did; he could have done it by agreeing to a joint publication by the two research teams as proposed by Sir Lawrence Bragg, even though he was a leading player in the race. One cannot imagine that either Franklin or Wilkins would have been happy merely with the phrase: "The double helix model was supported by the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins", but Sir John Randall felt he had good cause to be unhappy with his laboratory's competitors from the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, and also with Sir William Lawrence Bragg—the Head of the Cavendish Laboratory at the time, for his handling of the informal collaborations between the two research teams involved. He was also reported to have been unhappy with Dr. Rosalind Franklin for her stubbornly strong opposition to the double helix model of A-DNA which was reflected in his parting letter to Dr. Rosalind Franklin who left King's for Birkbeck College in London. One notes however that Sir William had been Dr. Randall' s scientific adviser in his early X-ray studies, and that without the latter's support for obtaining substantial research funding he might not have been able to establish his new Biophysics and X-ray diffraction laboratories at King's.

At the same time it can be said that Wilkins wished that his own name too had been joined with those of Watson and Crick in 1953 when invited to be listed as an author of the first Watson/Crick paper. Both Randall and Wilkins deserve more recognition of the discovery of the structure of DNA, but unlike John Randall, Wilkins at least got his one third share of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Books featuring Sir John Randall, FRSE

• Chomet, S. (Ed.), D.N.A. Genesis of a Discovery, 1994, Newman- Hemisphere Press, London.
• Wilkins, Maurice, The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins. ISBN 0-19-860665-6.
• Ridley, Matt; "Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Eminent Lives)" first published in July 2006 in the USA and then in the UK. September 2006, by HarperCollins Publishers ISBN 0-06-082333-X.
• Tait, Sylvia & James "A Quartet of Unlikely Discoveries" (Athena Press 2004) ISBN 1-84401-343-X
• Watson, James D., The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, Atheneum, 1980, ISBN 0-689-70602-2 (first published in 1968).

See also

• Magnetron
• A magnetron precursor prototype in 1935

External links

• Biography and picture of John Randall at the King's College website
• Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics website
• Key Participants: J. T. Randall - Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA: A Documentary History