Brady and I have just been looking at
some photos from the 1930s archive of
Nottingham these are labs that were the
real state of the art the building had
just been built as far as I know that
these photos here of research students
we know that at least one of them called
Wagstaff who's here subsequently ten
years later died in the Second World War
he was on a bomber which disappeared and
never returned
behind these photos there are very real
personal stories there are some quite
strange things people smoking pipes some
of you may not even know what a pipe is
wouldn't think for smoking tobacco
they're not wearing safety glasses
they're loads of chemicals everywhere
it's pretty untidy then they're women I
suppose that's not so surprising because
even when I was a student there weren't
many women chemists these labs were
brand new when the photo had been taken
and we're in a really lucky position
that I can show you some labs that are
also brand new they were opened two
weeks ago so let's go upstairs and see
what differences we can spot before we
go up I should show you my tie special
tie with test tubes and things on it
what's really special is that here Jim
gamble set it on fire with white
phosphorus in the middle of a lecture
before we go in let me stress this is a
teaching lab it's for science technology
engineering and maths they're what the
mathematicians will do in this lab and
not sure so the first thing you notice
everything's white the benches are white
the lab coats are white as you can see
in the photo that the bench is a dark
and I think they're damp lab coats are a
darkish color the next thing you notice
is it's enormous
compared to this lab in the photo there
many more students this is partly
because there are many more students in
universities than they were in the 1930s
there are lots more fume cupboards in
the photo there's perhaps one and you
can see here there fume cupboard
everywhere the other thing that's really
funny is that some of the fume cupboards
have transparent backs so if we go round
here you can see the students working
away without even needing to wear safety
glasses and at the same time we frighten
them away it's good for them because if
I want to demonstrate something they can
stand around this side and watch what
I'm doing braid is really excited
because he can imagine videoing Neal
from a completely different angle seeing
what he's really thinking when he
doesn't speak so we can walk along this
corridor to get to the middle part of
the lab and again you'll see they're
quite big differences one of the things
you see immediately is that the people
who are teaching are wearing coloured
lab coats like me so that the students
can immediately see who can help them we
have red coats are inorganic chemists
and the green ones over there are the
organic chemists so that's also an
innovation mixing up organic chemists
and inorganic chemists together it makes
the lab much more flexible it means you
don't need to have all the equipment
duplicated
one of the things that hasn't changed
very much from this photo is the sink
you can see here there's still a sink
with relatively similar stabs but the
difference is that the sinks now made
out of plastic rather than porcelain or
china so that if you drop some glassware
in there it doesn't break you see so you
don't have to pay for it but students
nowadays don't have to pay for their
glassware anyway in the old days some
students had to finish their calls early
because they couldn't pay for the
glassware that they were breaking
dreadful there's one difference from
really quite recent labs there lots and
lots of fire extinguishers when I was
teaching in the lab on the floor of
below a student set fire to the bench
and it took me a long time to find the
fire extinguisher and by then the bench
was really blazing away and once we put
it out for years I saw this child mark
every time I went into the lab
the most exciting thing about this lab
is something which you might not have
noticed this bench here which has taps
is fixed just like the benches in the
old labs which were all fixed down and
had to stay there for years and years
and years but all the other benches that
you can see in both directions are on
wheels and so if we suddenly decide we'd
like to change the way we teach this
particular class in an afternoon we can
completely change the configuration of
the lab move the benches around can move
the electrical power around and so on
the key to the flexibility are these
sort of elephant trunks because what
these are doing are they contain the
electrical power to the benches the
internet connections and of course the
pipes for the piped nitrogen and
compressed air that you have on the
benches and the water apart from the
basins where you washed your hands and
some glass where all the water is in the
fume cupboards
I haven't mentioned gas we all think of
Bunsen burners in labs there's no gas in
this lab so how do they heat things up
the answer is with a gas gun like this I
had to be taught how to use it a few
minutes ago you clip it down and the
flame comes out the door of the fume
cupboard is automated like a lift you
press the button
one of the things that I thought was
interesting is that when a bubble
catches fire that burning gas continues
to move up almost the same shape as the
bubble