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Visitors to Oxford can be baffled at first by the city’s wealth of architectural
and historical features; but their appeal is not always matched by ease
of access or adequate signposting. Sophie Huxley’s booklet, The Oxford
Science Walk (Science Walk, pp 21, £2 from 35 Marston Atreet, Oxford
OX4 1JU), provides a welcome walking tour through the history of Oxford
science that takes in much of the architectural beauty of the university.
It is not Huxley’s fault that a plaque on the wall of a concrete shopping
centre is all that remains to commemorate the work of the 13th-century scientist
Roger Bacon. More rewarding are the treasures in the little-known Museum
of the History of Science, which include formulae chalked on a blackboard
by Albert Einstein when he lectured at Oxford in 1931, and the bedpans
and biscuit tins used by Norman Heatley to produce the first samples of
penicillin in 1939.