Notable University Figures (2): Professor Walter E. Spear

In the second in our series looking at important figures in the University’s past we turn our attention to Walter Spear, one of the most distinguished physicists to have worked at the University of Dundee, and a man whose research made a major contribution to our everyday lives.

Born in Germany in 1921, Walter. E. Spear came to the UK just before the Second World War. After studying at the University of London he joined the University of Leicester, where he first met a student named Peter LeComber whose career would become intertwined with Spear’s own. In 1969 the two joined the staff of the University of Dundee where they would become famed for their research into the properties of amorphous silicon. The work of Spear and LeComber and their research team attracted much interest from companies and groups who saw that it had huge scientific and commercial potential. The research carried out in Dundee led to the creation of the amorphous film silicon transistor. This innovation directly led to LCD technology and the eventual development of solar panels and flat screen TVs. Spear’s work was recognised with a number of prestigious awards including the European Physical Society Europhysics prize (1976) and the Max Born Medal and Prize for Physics (1977).


Spear retired in 1988, and after the sudden death of Peter LeComber in 1992, effectively ended his active research career. Spear himself passed away at the age of 87 in 2008.

Walter Spear’s papers are held by Archive Services (UR-SF 57). They include articles written by Spear and notes for some of his talks and public lectures. The papers also include an unusual collection of letters sent to Spear some of which were sent by members of the public seeking support for their unorthodox scientific theories.

Planned obsolescence

Apple's decision earlier this week to ship a desktop computer without an optical drive prompted Alan to wonder on his personal blog whether this is a sign that CDs and DVDs are reaching the end of their useful life as media for digital information:

The launch of a [new] desktop Mac without an optical drive...put me in mind of the launch of the original iMac in the late 1990s and the paradigm shift in computing which that machine signaled. Back then, Apple were the first to identify that the floppy disk was obsolete; slow, unreliable and lacking the capacity needed for contemporary computing. The iMac was designed from the outset for networked environments and the internet. The rhetorical question Apple asked was 'why would you need a floppy drive if you have email?'.

[Now] in 2011 [we have] the strongest signal to date that optical media is becoming (in computing terms at least) moribund...Software and data are distributed via networks or the cloud and on those increasingly rare occasions where you have no network connection, portable flash storage is cheap and ubiquitous.

[The move away from optical media seems to mark a notable change in the storage and transfer of digital information and will have real implications for recordkeepers]. It's not that long ago that high-quality optical media was being recommended as a good 'vault' for digital information...Similarly, [we are] approaching a situation where we have to keep an optical drive around which can be plugged into a more modern machine to resurrect the only known copy of some important file, in the same way as we've had to keep floppy drives around for some years now...[Does] Apple's decision to ship a desktop computer without an optical drive point to impending obsolescence in the same way that the iMac's lack of a floppy drive did 13 years ago?

Chris Foresman, writing for Ars Technica, has answered that question, at least as far as Apple is concerned:

Apple has drawn the line in the sand: optical discs are out, and digital distribution is the future...

It is important to remember that Apple is only one company and lots of other manufacturers will continue to include optical drives with their PCs. However, Apple has in the past offered a strong indication of the direction of travel in technology and that is why their decision to move away from optical media is so interesting.

Notable University Figures (1): Sir James Alfred Ewing

This is the first in a regular feature in which we will explore the lives of some of the outstanding individuals associated with the University of Dundee and its predecessor institutions. It is fitting to begin by looking at the life a very eminent figure who was born and raised in Dundee and who was associated with University College in its earliest days - Professor Sir James Alfred Ewing.

Professor James Alfred Ewing 1889

James Alfred Ewing was born in 1855 and was the son of the Reverend James Ewing. The senior Ewing had been minister of St Andrew’s Church, but left the Church of Scotland at the great disruption of 1843 to found St Andrew’s Free Church. James Alfred Ewing received his schooling at Dundee’s West End Academy and High School before obtaining a scholarship to study for a degree in engineering at the University of Edinburgh. His academic career began in 1878 when he was appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Physics at the newly established University of Tokyo. While in Japan he researched earthquakes and developed new types of seismometer. He also gave the name to the phenomenon of hysteresis.

The Principal and professors at University College Dundee, 1889. Ewing is 4th from the left.

In 1883 Ewing returned to Dundee as the first holder of the chair of Mechanical Engineering at University College, Dundee. While at UCD he became known for his social work as well as his research. He was horrified by living conditions in his home city and was involved in schemes to try to improve them, notably taking a leading role in work to improve the city’s sewage system.

The Ewing Building at the University of Dundee

Ewing left Dundee in 1890 to take a chair at Cambridge and thereafter enjoyed a highly successful and varied career. After Cambridge he took the post of Director of Naval Education at the Admiralty and during the First World War he was head of the famed Room 40 specialist unit involved in deciphering German coded naval messages. In 1916 he became Principal of the University of Edinburgh, a post he held until 1929. Ewing was knighted in 1911 and died in 1935.

Archive Services hold a series of letters written by Ewing while he was at University College as well as pamphlets either by or about him (UR-SF 44). There is also material about his time at Dundee in a number of the College records of the period. Today Ewing’s name lives on at the University through the Ewing Building which was erected in 1954 and named in his honour.

Kenneth Baxter

Graduation 2011

Some of CAIS' graduates on the steps of Dundee's Caird Hall
(L-R)  Fiona Bourne (MLitt Archives and Records Management),
Fiona Musk (MLitt Archives and Records Management),
Michele Noad (MSc Records Management and Information Rights) and
Donna Kynaston (MSc Archives and Records Management (International)) 

The University's summer graduation ceremonies took place last week. On Wednesday we celebrated the success of more than thirty of our students who graduated from the full range of programmes offered by CAIS including Archives, Records Management, Information Compliance and Family and Local History.

Michele Noad with Leslie Turner
(Postgraduate Certificate in Family and Local History) at
the School of Humanities reception

Graduation is also the time each year that we celebrate the awards to undergraduate students in History named in honour of our former colleague, Dr Mary Young. Congratulations to Bryan Dawes (Mary Young Archive Prize (Level 2)) and Helen Healy (Mary Young Archive Prize (Levels 3 and 4)).

Our warmest congratulations to all of our graduates and to all those who graduated from the University of Dundee last week.