Oxford University Scientific Society
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| Founded | 1882 | ||
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| Home Page | Oxford University Scientific Society | ||
Officers of OUSS, Trinity Term Trinity term Trinity term is the name of the third and final term of Oxford University's and the University of Dublin's academic year. It runs from about mid April to about the end of June and is named after Trinity Sunday, which falls eight weeks after Easter, in May or June.At the University of Sydney, it was... 2011 |
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| President | Jenny Hayes, St Peter's | ||
| Vice-president | Aimee Guha Roy, Lady Margaret Hall Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located at the end of Norham Gardens in north Oxford. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £34m.... |
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| Secretary | Nessa Carson, University University College, Oxford .University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m... |
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| Treasurer | Irwin Zaid, Lady Margaret Hall Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located at the end of Norham Gardens in north Oxford. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £34m.... |
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| Membership Secretary | Robert Hickman, St Hugh's | ||
| Publicity Secretary | Tomas Malinauskas, Jesus Jesus College, Oxford Jesus College is one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket Street and Market Street... |
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| Sponsorship Secretary | |||
| Events Coordinator | Avijit Roy, Lady Margaret Hall Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford Lady Margaret Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located at the end of Norham Gardens in north Oxford. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £34m.... |
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| IT Officer | Joe Loughry, St Cross St Cross College, Oxford St Cross College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is an all-graduate college, sharing attractive, traditional-style buildings on a central site in St Giles', just south of Pusey Street... |
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The Oxford University Scientific Society (OUSS) is a student scientific society at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. It was founded in 1882 as the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club. It is one of the oldest undergraduate science societies in the world. It organizes talks on scientific subjects on a weekly basis. Former speakers include Nobel prize laureates (John E. Walker
John E. Walker
Professor Sir John Ernest Walker is an English chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997. He is currently the director of the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit in Cambridge, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.He was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the son of Thomas Ernest Walker, a...
, Peter Mansfield
Peter Mansfield
Sir Peter Mansfield, FRS, , is a British physicist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging . The Nobel Prize was shared with Paul Lauterbur, who also contributed to the development of MRI...
) and other well-known scientists (Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...
). OUSS also organizes visits to places of scientific interest - tours of the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, Museum of the History of Science and MINI
Mini
The Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
factory in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, the Joint European Torus
Joint European Torus
JET, the Joint European Torus, is the largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment worldwide currently in operation. Its main purpose is to open the way to future nuclear fusion experimental tokamak reactors such as ITER and :DEMO....
project, and the National Space Centre
National Space Centre
The National Space Centre is one of the United Kingdom's leading visitor attractions that is devoted to space science and astronomy. It is located in the city of Leicester, England, next to the River Soar on the A6.-History:...
in Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
.
History
Oxford University increased its provision for science in the second half of 19th century, with the first scientific degree awarded in 1850. A number of scientific ventures were undertaken, including the building of the Pitt Rivers MuseumPitt Rivers Museum
The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed through that building.The museum was...
and the Clarendon Lab, and the proportion of undergraduates doing a scientific degree increased every year.
Oxford University Junior Scientific Club was founded in November 1882. At that time there were around 25 students admitted to a scientific course every year (they accounted for 7% of the student body) and most of them soon joined the newly formed society. Edward Poulton and Halford Mackinder were among its founders. The Club aimed to bring together undergraduate and bachelor of arts members of the University for the discussion of scientific matters. After one year four fifths of students doing studying science were members of the club, and it also attracted members studying non-scientific disciplines. Graduates often stayed connected with the club after leaving the university. In 1889 it had 102 members, in 1894 - around 200, and this number stayed approximately the same until the First World War.
During first 30 years of its existence the club served as a platform to integrate science undergraduates as well as recent graduates and allowed them to present their original research. Although the society invited senior university members and distinguished academics to speak during so-called "special meetings", its main events were the fortnightly "ordinary meetings", in which papers about recent developments in science or about original research were read. Originally around half of those papers were read by current undergraduates, although it changed with time in favour of the graduate speakers. With no research degrees in Oxford, the ordinary meetings were one of the few opportunities for graduates to arouse interest about their scientific work. Famous students involved in those early years of the Junior Scientific Club include Nevil Sidgwick, Frederick Soddy
Frederick Soddy
Frederick Soddy was an English radiochemist who explained, with Ernest Rutherford, that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, now known to involve nuclear reactions. He also proved the existence of isotopes of certain radioactive elements...
, Henry Moseley
Henry Moseley
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley was an English physicist. Moseley's outstanding contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic number. This stemmed from his development of Moseley's law in X-ray spectra...
and Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
.
Special meetings with distinguished academics developed into an annual series of "Boyle Lectures", endowed and published from the society's subscription. Among the people who delivered those lectures were William Ramsay
William Ramsay
Sir William Ramsay was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air" .-Early years:Ramsay was born in Glasgow on 2...
, Lord Kelvin and Henry Acland. Some of those lectures have been subsequently made into books. Once every two years the Club organized science festivals, called "conversaziones", in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Conversaziones comprised popular-level lectures and exhibitions in Pitt Rivers. They attracted around 1000 people from around Oxford. One of such conversaziones was described in the journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
from 6 July 1936.
The club published its own journal, the Journal of the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club. It was edited every term from 1887 to 1912 and also after the First World War. Its style and composition were similar to other contemporary science periodicals, with some numbers containing as many as 100 pages. The articles were devoted to the papers read at the society's meetings or to general scientific developments. The journal also contained notes about current and former members of the club. In 1897 it was renamed Transactions of the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club.
By the beginning of the 20th century some specialized scientific societies were set up in Oxford and they were better suited for presenting undergraduate's research work. The quality of postgraduate teaching also improved. Those changes brought forth a shift in the activities of the Junior Scientific Club in 1920s. It concetrated mainly on inviting high-profile scientific speakers. This has remained the society's activity up to the present day.
The society's archives are largely available in the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
.
People
The Senior Member is Professor Kay DaviesKay Davies
Dame Kay Elizabeth Davies, DBE, FRS is a British human geneticist.She is the Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy at Oxford University and a fellow of Hertford College...
, FRS
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
(Genetics).
The following are patrons:
- Peter AtkinsPeter AtkinsPeter William Atkins is a British chemist and former Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lincoln College. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics...
(Chemistry) - Colin BlakemoreColin BlakemoreProfessor Colin Blakemore, Ph.D., FRS, FMedSci, HonFSB, HonFRCP, is a British neurobiologist who is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and University of Warwick specialising in vision and the development of the brain. He was formerly Chief Executive of the British Medical...
(Physiology) - Richard DawkinsRichard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
(Zoology) - Sir Roger PenroseRoger PenroseSir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...
(Mathematics)