The scientific legacy of Scotland is awe-inspiring. As I hurtle down the East Coast line to the 42nd IUPAC Congress in Glasgow, which is being hosted by the RSC from today until Friday, I’m taking time to acquaint myself with a few of the many great scientists, engineers and inventors the country has produced. I may fling out a few Scottish science facts throughout the week on the official IUPAC Twitter stream, twitter.com/IUPAC2009.

We’re so taken with the prodigious scientific output of Scotland that we want to celebrate it by giving away a new Apple iPhone 3GS – the latest and greatest incarnation of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. He’s Scottish too. All you have to do is tell us (in 140 chars or fewer, naturally) the reason Scotland produces so many great scientists (via email, blog comment or preferably Tweet). More on Scottish scientists and full competweetion rules later in the post.

The "Armadillo", SECC Glasglow

The "Armadillo", SECC Glasglow

The 42nd IUPAC Congress is being held in Glasgow at the SECC, a fabulous-looking conference centre on the riverside. The Clyde Auditorium, known affectionately as the “armadillo” building, features heavily on TV. I’m ashamed to say the place I saw it most frequently was on Britain’s Got Talent.

If it were Britain’s Got Scientific Talent, I’d have to bet that the number of Scots to get through to the final would be a lot higher than its toe-curlingly embarrassing ITV counterpart. A probably incomplete list can be found on Wikipedia here, but I thought I’d round up a few highlights of Scottish science, medicine and engineering before telling you how to get your mitts on an iPhone. If you’re desperate to get to the competweetion, just scroll down… but you’re missing out.

I’m biased, so let’s start with the chemists. Joseph Black worked as a doctor and chemist in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 18th century. He discovered and developed the concepts of latent and specific heat, which led to the theories of thermodynamics we use today. He was also the discover of “fixed air” – later to be called carbon dioxide. This was the first instance of someone proving air was not a single element, but made of a mixture of different gases – a true turning point in chemistry and science in general.

So important was Black to science that the RSC is honouring him with a Chemical Landmark during the IUPAC Congress. RSC Chemical Landmark plaques are given to remember influential people and places in chemistry.

Another great Scottish chemist was Thomas Graham, a 19th century professor of chemistry. The first president of the Chemical Society of London (which would eventually become the Royal Society of Chemistry), Graham is best remembered for this work on the diffusion of gases – resulting in Graham’s Law – and of his invention of the dialyzer, the device upon which dialysis treatment is based. Interestingly he was also the last-ever Master of the Mint, a post he held for the final 15 years of his life.

Although of course I could talk about chemistry forever, Scottish science is far more wide ranging. It’s estimated that throughout the 18th century more than 75% of doctors in London were Scottish or trained in Scotland. Thomas Addison (Addison’s disease et al) William Cullen (taught Joseph Black) and of course Alexander Fleming (penicillin) are but a few of the many medical practitioners and researchers to originate from Scotland.

It’s in our nature as chemists to try to steal famous physicists for our banner, but shall we let them keep a few? Physics-minded Scots of note: James Dewar (Dewar flask), James Maxwell (thermodynamics and electromagnetism), Charles Wilson (cloud chamber) and Lord Kelvin (of degrees Kelvin fame, among much else).

What an embarrasssingly unrepresentative list this is – but you just can’t cover everyone. I missed out some excellent chemists (James “Paraffin” Young, Noble gas discoverer William Ramsay) and other very notable names (popular science writer Mary Somerville, Robert Brown and eponymous Motion). So many inventions used today for all sorts of purposes came from Scotland: the television (John Logie Baird), radar (Robert Watson-Watt), John Napier (logarithms), and of course the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell).

Which leads us nicely onto our competweetion: to win an Apple iPhone 3GS, just tell us what it is about Scotland that provides so many world-leading scientists. Is there something in the water? Your answer HAS to be 140 characters or fewer, meaning it should fit in a tweet.

You can enter in the following ways:

  • Preferred way: Twitter. Begin a tweet with #scotsci and it will be counted as an entry.
  • If you really can’t abide Twitter, post your answer as a comment to this post or email it to me at edwardsj at rsc dot org. Even if you comment or email, your entry still has to be 140 characters or fewer!

We’ll count all entries up until the end of 1st September. The prize will be one Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB on O2 Pay&Go, with 12 months’ free web and WiFi. The new iPhones use some excellent chemistry in their oleophobic screen coatings, which resists those annoying fingerprints that plague all touchscreen devices.