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DOUGLAS MACLEAN CLARK MACEWAN 1917–2000

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With the death of Douglas MacEwan on 12 March 2000, at the age of 82, we have lost a scientist of brilliant intellect who made seminal contributions to so many fields. Yet he never reached his full potential in material terms because of the diversity of his interests, his restless spirit and his inability to resist new challenges.

Douglas was born in Edinburgh on 20 June 1917. He was educated at Craigend Park School, a private school where the excellent science teaching inspired him to follow a scientific career. Entering Edinburgh University at the age of 16, he graduated MA, BSc with honours in Physics before undertaking X-ray crystallographic research under Dr C.A. Beevers at the Chemistry Department. In 1941 he graduated PhD for a thesis entitled (a) A machine for the rapid summation of Fourier series; (b) An X-ray investigation of sulphuric acid monohydrate. The machine, an ingenious, early, single-purpose electric calculator ( J. Scient. Instrument. 1942, 19, 150–156 ) was advanced for its time and excited considerable interest from eminent X-ray crystallographers (including Sir Lawrence Bragg) when exhibited at a meeting of the X-ray Analysis Group of the Institute of Physics in Cambridge in the early 1940s. Although fully operative, it was never possible to make full use of it because of the unavailability of counters that would sum both positive and negative numbers. The prototype had merely one positive and one negative counter that could be connected to any of the output points. This, however, does not detract from the considerable achievements of designing and constructing the machine itself.

In 1941, Douglas was recruited by Dr Alex Muir, head of the Soil Survey Department at the Macaulay Institute for Soil . . . [Full Text of this Article]