Who was the first Scot to win the nobel prize?
IF you ever find yourself on Queen’s Crescent, off West Princes Street in Glasgow, it’s worth stopping by No 2 to pay your respects. There’s no plaque on the wall to indicate it, but it’s here that Sir William Ramsay was born. Were it not for him, the periodic table would be considerably smaller and Scotland would not have gained its first Nobel Prize for chemistry until some 50 years after Ramsay did in 1904. Indeed, today is the centenary of Ramsay receiving that Nobel Prize – not that you’d know it. Professor Leslie Barr is emeritus professor of physics at the University of Paisley and last night gave an address to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow to mark the centenary. “I don’t think people know it’s the centenary of Ramsay’s Nobel Prize,” says Barr, speaking from his home in Lochwinnoch. “If you went to America, you’ll find universities pride themselves on anyone in the university who has a Nobel Prize. We underestimate what we have done. We ought to make a song and danc
