Professional Association

The "Irish Lives" project grew out of the radio programme PRISM's decision to include a regular look-back section that gave a brief biography of Irish scientists in history. The following pages are the scripts of those talks. IRSA and the "PRISM" team would like to thank Dr Charles Mollan of SAMTON Ltd for preparing the scripts and for giving permission to publish them on the World Wide Web.
Down along the lefthand side are the names of the people in our series. We are still anxious to collect more biographies. Our present collection includes some held at sites other than our own server.

It is rare that an individual with highly specialised knowledge can communicate it to a general audience. If Susan Greenfield is a ubiquitous media figure it's because not only does she talk about the brain so clearly but she also passes on some of the excitement of working with scientific ideas. Susan talks about the brain the way other people talk about fine art or football. It is a thing of endless beauty and fascination.

John Charles Fields was born in Hamilton, Ontario, then Upper Canada, in 1863. His father operated a leather shop at 32 King St. West, and the family lived nearby at 150 King St. East. (Both of these buildings have long since disappeared–the site of the shop is now occupied by Jackson Square, a shopping complex, and that of the house by a Ramada Inn).

AT&T brought its former president, Theodore Vail, out of retirement to help it fight off competition erupting from the expiration of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patents. Vail's solution: transcontinental telephone service.
In 1906, the eccentric American inventor Lee De Forest developed a triode in a vacuum tube. It was a device that could amplify signals, including, it was hoped, signals on telephone lines as they were transferred across the country from one switch box to another. AT&T bought De Forest's patent and vastly improved the tube. It allowed the signal to be amplified regularly along the line, meaning that a telephone conversation could go on across any distance as long as there were amplifiers along the way.

In 1988, the Space Foundation in cooperation with NASA, established the Space Technology Hall of Fame. Its purpose is threefold: to honor the innovators who have transformed technology originally developed for space use into commercial products; to increase public awareness of the benefits of space spinoff technology; and to encourage further innovation.

The Nobel Prize is the first international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma, and a prize amount.

From the ancient classics to the masterpieces of the 20th century, the Great Books are all the introduction you’ll ever need to the ideas, stories and discoveries that have shaped modern civilization.

The Historical Metallurgy Society Ltd. is a company limited by guarantee. It provides a forum for exchange of information and research in historical metallurgy. It aims to gain recognition for the subject from the community at large and to be consulted when issues of preservation and recording arise. Established in 1962, HMS covers all aspects of the history of metals and associated materials, production and use, technology and economics; from prehistory to the present.

Explore the fascinating history of the human endeavor to organize our lives in accordance with the sun and stars.

Historical Development of Earth Rotation Knowledge
The daily rotation of the earth, which causes the distinction between day and night, has been used as the basis for time reckoning for thousands of years.