Dr John Mellis

What stimulated my interest in the history of Scottish science? Apart from being born, raised and having received my own scientific education there, I think it’s a subject which is grievously under-documented, except for individual biographies of the most famous scientists and inventors most of us have heard about. The James Watts, Mary Somervilles, Graham Bells and Alexander Flemings are well recognised, but superficially, and in isolation from each other. Now, as a Scottish 'emigrant' living in England, I’m trying to do the subject justice by linking their stories together and combining the details of their rich lives with their astounding technical achievements. Only my readers can judge if I’ve been successful.

Note also that a second edition of 'Scotland's Science Next' has been published, in paperback and in hardback. Why? The new edition is updated to cover the important events of late 2022, most notably the award of the Nobel Prize in chemistry to Professor David MacMillan of Princeton University, who was born in Bellshill near Motherwell, graduated in that subject from Glasgow University, and has gone on to co-create an exciting new field of chemistry - organocatalysis.