Strange bedfellows | Nature Physics

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Events will be taking place across the United Kingdom throughout 2015 to commemorate the achievements, 50 years after his death, of one of

the twentieth century's most distinctive characters. Although regarded as a great wartime leader, Winston Churchill's legacy extends far beyond politics. And although the Nobel

Prize winning author had well-known artistic talents, his enthusiasm for science generally flies under the radar. But now, with artefacts, film footage, letters and photographs, the

exhibition _Churchill's Scientists_ tells the lesser-known story of Churchill's relationship with science, and how he fostered an environment that led to several ground-breaking

discoveries. But the exhibition features many other intriguing characters and shows how Churchill's championing of innovation, technology and discovery helped lead to advances in radio

astronomy, nuclear physics, nerve and brain functions, molecular genetics and robotics. The exhibition combines pieces on well-known projects such as Robert Watson-Watt's development of

radar and Bernard Lovell's construction of the world's largest radio telescope, with lesser-known works such as Dorothy Hodgkin's unravelling of the structure of penicillin

and Elsie Widdowson establishing the nutrition of the restricted wartime diet. It reminds us that Britain once had the world's largest atomic weapons programme and for a while was the

nation with the greatest proportion of electricity generated from nuclear sources. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your

institution Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $259.00 per year only $21.58 per issue Learn more Buy this article * Purchase on SpringerLink * Instant access

to full article PDF Buy now Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read

our FAQs * Contact customer support Authors * Luke Fleet View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Fleet, L. Strange bedfellows. _Nature Phys_ 11, 209 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3276 Download citation * Published: 03 March 2015 * Issue Date:

March 2015 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3276 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link

is not currently available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative