John C. H. Spence

"As a Physicist, I've always been interested in the history of Science, and was led to writing "Lightspeed" by wondering how Astrologers can predict our destiny from the positions of the stars, if the light from the stars takes millions of years to get to us! Right now, they are somewhere else! I describe the lives of the extraordinary scientists who, since the ancient Greeks, measured the speed of light, how they did it (from Roemer to Michelson), and how this led, most improbably, to relativity and Einstein's theory for the atomic bomb. (For a short talk with pictures (Galileo's telescope, Laying the Atlantic telegraph, Spacecraft communications), search: Royal Institution Video Spence). We see how the Church came to accept that there is no stationary frame of reference in the universe, and how it was accepted that when we look at the stars we are looking into the past".

John Spence was trained in Australia and the UK, and has taught physics in Arizona for more than thirty years. At present he is Research Director for an NSF multi-university consortium which uses X-ray lasers to make movies of molecular machines at work. He's written and co-authored several textbooks on Electron Microscopy, and now teach graduate students Condensed Matter Physics. He is an enthusiastic glider pilot (Schweizer 1-26 - strong thermals in Arizona!), sailor (Flying Dutchman, Etchells) and musician (Piano, flute, guitar). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Australian Academy of Science. Currently, he's working on a book on the evolutionary origins of human optimism, and has just completed a biography of his father, Wing Commander Lou Spence, DFC and bar, Legion of Merit. Lou was a fighter pilot in World War 2 who flew in combat in the Middle East against Rommel's forces, in Spitfires against the Japanese attempted invasion of Australia, and led the Australian Airforce Mustangs of RAAF 77 Squadron in their contribution to the Korean war.