50 years ago

“Team-work and discovery in science” — ... Dr. W. S. Kroll took issue with those who claim that the days of 'sealing wax–baling wire' science are over. The fight of the individual against the collectivity in which he lives is as old as humanity and it will never cease to exist. While Dr. Kroll granted that the team could not be avoided in development work, he challenged its justification in research ... He maintained that many laboratories in the United States are over-fond of gadgets and complicated equipment which often take more time to repair than to use. These instruments remove the investigator from his experiment ... We have to offer the recalcitrant lone-wolf research worker some asylum since he is now menaced with extinction.

From Nature 18 January 1958.

100 years ago

“Public clocks and time distribution” — The interesting correspondence on “Lying Clocks” inaugurated by Sir John Cockburn in the Times has tended to degenerate into a display of advertisements by different firms interested in various systems of clock synchronisation ... [The] essential preliminary of the distribution of correct time signals is provided for by the Post Office authorities, working in cooperation with the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The telegraphic service throughout the country is suspended for a few seconds, while the signal is sent through the trunk lines at 10 a.m. But, unfortunately, it is to be feared that the duty of forwarding this signal to the smaller towns is very carelessly and inefficiently performed ... If it were thoroughly well known that there did exist in every town and village an office where correct time could be had, even at some personal inconvenience, careful people would take the trouble to keep their clocks fairly accurate, and by so doing gradually educate the more indifferent to a higher standard.

From Nature 16 January 1908.