It’s a Gas!

On the evening of Wednesday 20 November 2024, RSC Belgium welcomed well-known material scientist and broadcaster Professor Mark Miodownik from University College London to Belgium to talk to us about his new book ‘It’s a Gas’.

Subtitled ‘The Magnificent and Elusive Elements that Expand Our World’ Mark’s new book masterfully reveals an invisible world through his unique brand of scientific storytelling. Why are most gases invisible, odourless and tasteless? Why do some poison us and others make us laugh? And why do some explode while others are content just to make drinks fizzy? 

During the evening Mark took us back to those exhilarating – and often dangerous – moments when scientists were trying to work out exactly what they had discovered in the world of gases. His talk showed that gases are the formative substances of our modern world, each with its own weird and wonderful personality. Examples included how seventeenth-century laughing gas parties led to the first use of anaesthetics in surgery, and how gases made us masters of the sea (by huge steamships) and skies (via extremely flammable balloons). The talk revealed the immense importance of gases to modern civilisation.

A Financial Times Master of Science and chosen by The Times as one of the 100 most influential scientists in the UK, Mark is Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, where he is also Director of the Institute of Making. He is the author of the book Stuff Matters – a New York Times bestseller which won the Royal Society Winton Prize – and Liquid, which was shortlisted for the same prize. He presents BBC TV and radio programmes on science and engineering such as Everyday Miracles and How It Works.

The talk was in the Brel Theatre at the British School of Brussels (BSB) in Tervuren, and was followed by a networking drinks reception with Waterstones Brussels bookshop in attendance allowing members and friends to purchase signed copies of some of Mark's books and have an informal chat with him.

Mark's talk was recorded and is now available on our dedicated YouTube channel and as an embedded video below.

Mud Lane, Piccadilly and the Strand

On Saturday 19 September RSC Belgium members and friends enjoyed a fascinating walking tour in one part of Belgium that will be forever part of British history and the history of warfare. Ploegsteert – or Plug Street as the World War One ‘tommies’ called it – was on the front line of the Ypres salient for most of the Great War and reminders and memorials of the conflict are everywhere.

The tour was led by local expert Claude Verhaeghe and took us to some recently excavated sites in areas where the first gas attacks of the war took place.

The RSC party met up close to Ypres railway station and took a coach to the monumental Ploegsteert memorial (see above) where we met up with Claude and then took a walking tour along Mud Lane via a series of military cemeteries to the site of the Christmas Day truce (see below).

The Ploegsteert area in in that curious part of french-speaking Wallonia that butts into Western Flanders. Clearly its mixture of francophone and Flemish place names were too much for the first wave of mainly London bred British soldiers based in the area from 1914. This led to familiar London place names replacing local ones in their military maps. Tracks through the woods were known as the Strand, Regent Street and Haymarket.

Claude described the situation of the men on the frontline, told various episodes from the war in the area, and the fascinating, individual stories of many of the men who lost their lives.

At the Prowse Point cemetery (see above) – one of the few cemeteries that are ‘open’ to receive the bodies of the soldiers that are still being discovered in the area - Claude and section secretary Becki Scott described their involvement in the discovery, scientific identification and reburial of Australian solder Alan Mather and how just a few years ago.

After the walk a brief coach tour took us past Bruce Bairnsfather’s ‘cottage’ and some of the craters formed by the huge explosive mines employed by both sides.  It was disconcerting to realise that a number untriggered or unexploded mines are still buried in the region. The last victims of World War One was in 1955 when an untriggered mine exploded. But hazards from the discovery of conventional unexploded ordnance and even gas shells are still common place in the area.

After a very pleasant lunch at the restaurant L’Auberge our party returned to Ypres via the Church crypt at Messines where Adolf Hitler had been treated for injuries during the war. We learnt that Winston Churchill had been in the same sector in 1916 when commanding a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers following his resignation from government following the Gallipoli debacle. Both future leaders were enthusiastic painters and both had painted the church at Messines.

Our thanks to Becki Scott for organising the logistics of the trip and to Claude Verhaeghe for being a very informative and entertaining guide. You can find out more about Claude’s battlefield tours here.