Sir Patrick Moore, the astronomer, died this morning aged 89. He featured on The Spectator’s power list of over-80s, published last year. Here are the other scientists listed in the category.
Bernard Lovell, by Martin Rees
Bernard Lovell ranks as one of the great visionary leaders of science. Along with others of his generation, the war gave him responsibility and opportunity at an early age. He was thereby encouraged to ‘think big’ when he returned to academic science. He had the boldness to conceive a giant radio telescope, and the persistence to see it through to completion, despite the risk of bankruptcy. It was a huge project by the standards of the 1950s. What is even more remarkable is that, more than 50 years later, this instrument (after several upgradings) is still doing ‘frontier’ science: for instance, it is helping to test Einstein’s theory to a precision 10,000 times better than was possible when it was built.
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