Blog Post May 2018

Posted on 16/05/2018

The Man Who Listens To Temperature

I was lucky to have my parents, who always valued the importance of learning as their education had been significantly hampered by the onset of the Second World War. They also attached great importance to creativity and making things for yourself, so my childhood memories are of my brother and his friends making Go Karts in the summer from old pram wheels and igloos in the winter during snow. One of my favourite memories is of my brother making a light ray in my Dad’s garage and then inviting all of the kids from the neighbourhood to watch how it worked. A paper target was duly put on my dad’s bench, the light ray set up at the other end of the garage and we all waited for something to happen. After many minutes we were all getting bored and fidgeting and started to complain when suddenly the paper target caught fire and we were all in awe of my older brother Paul.

Looking back, I realise that my parent’s attitude to learning and creativity was fundamental in giving my brothers and I important values in life. I went on to form a successful children’s charity which I am very proud of, and my brother went on to form a very successful metrology company. Following on from accidents such as that at Fukushima, he was asked to research a new project to measure temperature more reliably in nuclear reactors and he has designed a new product that “listens to the electrical noise generated by temperature” which seems mind blowing.  See http://www.facebook.com/johnsonnoisethermometer/ for more information.

So next time the internet goes down and the kids are bored without Facebook or Whatsapp perhaps try making something with them instead………

Andrea Maddocks MBE