Peter Ross at Large: Scots Astronomer Royal Always Ready with a Star Turn

Summary

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PROFESSOR John C Brown, the 10th man since 1834 to hold the title Astronomer Royal for Scotland, is standing on the balcony outside his office on the top floor of Glasgow University's Kelvin Building. Squirrels hop on the branches of trees below, while Brown - balding, bearded and bespectacled - points a small golden telescope resembling a Futurist machine gun at the sun. Glasgow scientists have been making solar experiments for almost 250 years, and Brown acknowledges quite cheerfully that there is a certain dreich irony in trying to examine the sun from the west coast of Scotland. "But we study it these days with X-rays from space, so we don't actually need the weather."

There had been a vague plan to spend the morning looking at sunspots, dark magnetic fields on the sun's surface, but it turns out there have been hardly any in recent years. The good news is this leaves more time for talking to Brown, a fascinating man. The bad news is that it may herald a new ice age and global apocalypse.

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Peter Ross at Large: Scots Astronomer Royal Always Ready with a Star Turn

We go back into his office, a cluttered space representative of the mind of its occupant. There's a bird skull on his desk; a photo of Einstein on one wall; in a corner there's an ancient computer topped with a bust of Homer Simpson; a battered m...

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