Chapter 4. Undergraduate Student Days at Cambridge
"Unless all existence is a medium of revelation,
no particular revelation is possible."
William Temple
In October of 1939, at the age of 19, Peter Mitchell arrived with his Morgan automobile in Cambridge, a loaded revolver in his pocket. Following graduation from Queens College, Taunton, he had spent the summer relaxing with Mum and Bill at her new home in Exmouth. Bill had already completed the requirements for his Engineering degree and consequently had graduated and left Cambridge even before Peter was to begin. When Hitler invaded Poland on September first and England declared war on Germany, Bill and Pete both felt a need to do their bit to protect their country against German aggression, and they consequently joined the home guard which was to serve as a backstop in case of invasion. Weapons had been issued to the army enlistees, but there was a severe shortage of arms and none remained for the home guard. The men were given tin hats and told to acquire weapons by their own means if possible. Bill got hold of an elephant gun, and Peter secured a pump action, 12 bore shotgun, originally intended for pigeons. Later he bought a more suitable revolver which he took to Cambridge and at least initially carried with him at all times.
The home guard was supposed to patrol the sky for possible airborne invaders and to contact the authorities if any were spotted. The weapons were to be used against the invading enemy were the anticipated event to occur. If an invasion had occurred the makeshift weapons carried by members of the home guard would have been quite useless, but the guard nevertheless took their responsibilities very seriously and felt a sense of importance. Once in Cambridge, Peter additionally joined the ambulance service to provide assistance in case of a bombing.
Cambridge during the war was like a garrison state. Enrollment decreased, many of the University staff were called into military service, and colleges were used for military training. Jesus College, for example, was used for the training of pilots, and many students joined officer's training. There were military personnel everywhere, and guards patrolled the college entrances with bayonettes. When an unidentified person would appear at the gates he would be asked: "Who goes there?" The correct answer was: "Friend." The sentry officer would then say "Advance and be recognized," and the person seeking entrance would have to show his military picture I.D. Several American Air Force bases were situated outside of Cambridge, and Canadian Army training camps were also nearby.
In spite of these facts, few bombs were dropped on Cambridge, and the few that were dropped were generally of little consequence. In one instance a lab technician, sleeping at home, was aware of a disturbance and thought he was having a nightmare. In his dream he seemed to be in his bedroom, yet it was also like the laboratory because near the wall was an oxygen cylinder. When he came out of his semiconscious nightmarish condition, he found an enormous bomb against the wall of his bedroom. It had first hit the neighboring house, and the impact had knocked off the nose cap containing the detonator. The harmless bomb had then gone through the wall of his bedroom, its nose embedded within the floor. He ran downstairs and out of the house in a panic to find that initially no one would believe his story.
On another occasion, an incendiary bomb fell on the Biochemistry building and landed directly in the sink of a top floor laboratory. The racket frightened the lab workers, but the bomb was quickly extinguished merely by turning on the water. At least in Cambridge the German war effort was not very effective either in causing havoc or in demoralizing the inhabitants. Possibly Cambridge was spared because it lacked industry, or maybe some influential German officers had attended University there and had sentimental feelings. It is also possible that the Germans intended to use and occupy the city in the planned conquest of Britain just as the Americans spared Heidelberg in preparation for the occupation of Germany.
As in Taunton, Peter initiated his daily routine by going on long early morning walks by himself, through the picturesque Cambridge setting with its ancient buildings and along the public footpaths of the surrounding countryside. The terrain surrounding Cambridge is fairly uniform, quite flat except for two hills, Gog and Magog, named after two mythological giants who were supposed to have fought each other there. However, the Cam river winds lazily through the town, and the vegetation is abundantly lush throughout the spring, summer and early autumn months. The atmosphere is relaxing and the sunrises often spectacular so that walks in the small hours served to provide Peter with continuity and peace of mind, even in times of war and stress.
As was normal for first year students, Peter resided that freshman year at the Jesus College common facility. Each student had a bedroom and study on the staircase and they shared kitchen facilities. A "bedder" made the beds and kept the rooms tidy, and most of their dinners were eaten communally in the hall. Since Bill had been at Jesus College before Peter, Peter found himself automatically in the "younger brother's" club. This club afforded him some initial opportunity for social interaction, which, however, because of his solitary nature, he tended to minimize. When friendships did develop, they arose as if by accident. So many unexplained physical and psychological features seemed to play a role in the development of personal relationships that Peter never really felt he understood their bases. They seemed to develop in a complicated, magical, animal-like way.
Because of the rooming situation that year, peace, quiet and privacy were hard to come by, a fact that grated on Peter's nature. In the evenings there was frequently lots of noise which sometimes lasted hours past Peter's customary bedtime because several of the medical students who roomed on the staircase drank quantities of beer and subsequently became quite rowdy with their drunken singing, joking and fighting. The more studious members of the University community used to describe them as "the lowest forms of life."
Peter never enjoyed living communally on the staircase and at the first opportunity sought lodging elsewhere. Before the year was out he had found a satisfactory place at 58 Jesus Lane, a quiet, private, row house built around 1810 which served as his residence for several years. A Mrs. Pratt was the landlady, a nice woman whose husband was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. Since his hands were uselessly deformed, the old couple made a living by renting out the two upstairs rooms, the smaller front room which Peter took initially and the more spacious back room which he assumed several years later. The old couple lived in the basement.
Jesus College was renowned for its rowing; it often had a number of men on the Cambridge boat that participated in the famous race on the Thames in which Oxford competed against Cambridge. Games such as football, cricket, squash and tennis were also popular, but even though Peter's legs had healed satisfactorily following his accident at Queens, he couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for rowing or any of these other group sports. Ice skating was the only sport in which he actively partook during the Cambridge years, and this, of course, was only possible during the winter months. Some winters were quite severe, and one year it became so cold that the river froze over solid so that it was possible to skate the 4 miles to Grantchester. Peter took some pride in this undertaking which with a couple of his closer associates he thoroughly enjoyed in spite of the freezing temperatures.
In Cambridge at that time there were shallow vats for fermentation of sewage called "sewage farms." Almost every year it got cold enough for them to freeze over, and in their solid condition they served the student population as skating rinks. Among the students who frequented the sewage farms was Fred Sanger who subsequently was to receive two Nobel prizes. On one occasion in early winter before the ice had fully solidified, Fred and Peter were skating together and one of Fred's feet went through the ice to become quite smelly. Peter poked fun at Fred after that, but a short while later while Peter was skating at a good clip, he heard the ice cracking under him. For fear of going through, he decided to go down flat on his stomach in order to distribute his weight over a larger surface area. This action unfortunately didn¹t prevent the dreaded event from occurring, and it was then Fred¹s turn to laugh.
Instead of participating in sports, Peter spent his spare time reading, talking with friends, playing the violin alone or with others, and studying philosophy. Although he remained fairly solitary, particularly at first, college rules provided incentive for being sociable. Even the students who resided at private homes in Cambridge were obligated to dine in the large communal dining room (the Hall) several times a week and were thus residents not only for lectures (which were organized by the University) but also for meals (which were organized by the individual colleges). When students went to meals, it was necessary to wear a chopped off gown which came down just past their bottoms, and when they went out after dark, a cap was also required. "Proctors" functioned as police to catch students who were out without proper attire, and fast running "Bullers" were summoned if a student tried to get away. Once, after Peter had received his degree, he was out after dark, dressed without gown and cap, and was caught and fined two-thirds of a pound, twice the normal sum. The regulation book had stated that the fine should be doubled if "anything occurred to aggravate the offense." The "aggravating circumstance" was that he had already received his degree and therefore should have known better. In spite of his frustration with the apparent stupidity of these outdated regulations which reminded him of some of the rigid rules regarding dress code in Queens College, Taunton, and in spite of his long standing preference for more casual attire, his idealism did not prevent him from grudgingly paying the fine. The overall benefits of society far outweigh the detriments of a few ill conceived regulations which attempt to mold the individual to the specifications of society.
During his undergraduate years, Peter followed the rigid academic schedule dictated by the University system. From 9:00-10:00 was lecture followed by two hour laboratory practicals. Another lecture took place at noon, and a one hour lunch period ensued before the afternoon laboratory practicals began. The third lecture period, 5:00-6:00, preceded Hall, and evenings were reserved for study. This schedule was in effect six days a week, so there was little spare time for leisure. The rigidity of the system was tolerable partly because of Peter's earlier training at Queens College, and partly because of the relaxing early morning walks through the countryside during which he composed himself.
Lecture and laboratory sizes were much larger at Cambridge than they had been at Queens, and consequently teaching techniques had to be quite different and relatively impersonal. However, the teachers also served as supervisors with whom students would meet on a weekly basis, and this supervisory program allowed some opportunity for interaction with them. One of the professors Peter met and benefited from was Ernest Baldwin who had written some of the early textbooks in Biochemistry. Baldwin may not have been a top scientist, but he was a good teacher who made the study of the molecular basis of life fascinating. He had the subject at his fingertips and always gave a stimulating presentation, and partly because he was a chain smoker and short of breath, sentences came spurting out with intermittent gasps for air. It seemed as though he were panting from the excitement of the lecture material! Peter's initial enthusiasm for biochemistry was undoubtedly in large measure due to his influence.
Another excellent biochemistry teacher was Malcolm Dixon whose book, Multienzyme Systems, Peter found revealing and exciting. Dixon's teaching and writing methods made the study of enzyme kinetics and catalysis both easy and enjoyable, and it was to a considerable extent his influence which eventually led Peter to the fundamental concept of "group translocation", a process in which a chemical group transfer reaction is coupled to movement of a solute molecule across a semipermeable barrier such as a biological membrane. In his subsequent publications Peter referred to this process as well as other transmembrane transport phenomena quite generally as "vectorial chemistry." Interestingly, even though Malcolm had provided some of the key concepts for certain aspects of group translocation, he never accepted the potentially vectorial nature of enzyme-catalyzed reactions.
Peter also enjoyed lectures on nerve physiology with Professor Adrian, particularly concerning the movement of charged particles or "ions" across membranes, and on blood physiology with Dr. Roughton, particularly concerning bicarbonate exchange and the coagulation processes which accompany blood clotting, but he found Dr. Wilmar, who taught histology, terribly boring. Perhaps Dr. Wilmer was a less dynamic lecturer than the others, or maybe his subject was simply of less inherent interest to Peter, but Peter sometimes felt that the boredom he felt may have been his own fault. It seems that being a good student is like being a good baby: If you¹re not getting enough out of the experience, you're probably not sucking hard enough.
When Peter first began attending Biochemistry laboratory classes, he would often encounter Fredrick Hopkins whose lab was up a flight of stairs from the student laboratories. There was no obligatory retirement age at Cambridge, and the position of professor and chairman was a lifetime appointment. In his advanced age, Hopkins had nearly lost his eyesight, but this did not deter him from his research efforts or administrative responsibilities. Peter would often see him fumbling along the staircase and say, "Good morning professor, can I help you up the stairs?" The old professor would usually respond by saying, "Why yes, thank you, I'd be most grateful!" and Peter would take him up to where he was working on butterfly wings. The young student felt tremendous reverence for this man who had first discovered and characterized vitamins, accomplishments for which he had been awarded the Nobel prize in 1929. This same man had later recognized the need for a discipline of biochemistry, distinct from those of chemistry and physiology and had played an instrumental role in getting the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge started. The history of this department which was perhaps the first of its kind anywhere in the world is described in The History of the Biochemical Society, 1911-1986, by T.W. Goodwin (The Biochemical Society, 1987).
Peter had two particularly good friends during the latter half of his undergraduate years, Quin Gerring and John Gayer-Anderson, both students of Jesus College who had entered in 1941. It was with these friends that he spent much of his casual time. The three friends enjoyed talking over coffee, went to lectures together and sat together in Hall. John was a bit idiosyncratic; as an undergraduate in science he surprisingly enjoyed writing comical puppet plays and then performing them with a high degree of competence for the amusement of any who were interested. As he was highly imaginative and had a terrific sense of humor his audiences were very appreciative. He was essentially apolitical, but consistent with his rather flamboyant lifestyle which depended on the use of his private income, he was a strong supporter of capitalism. Although John completed his first degree in Science, he later returned to Cambridge after serving in the Egyptian army, then a branch of the British army, to continue studies in English Literature in preparation for a writing career. Although he had no particular political views, John rather enjoyed arguing politics, regardless of the side he found himself on. It was perhaps his spontaneous sense of humor, and possibly also his profound appreciation of Peter's keen intellect, which Peter found most enticing about John. In spite of John's outwardly flippant nature, he and Peter had many serious conversations, and their friendship solidified. As the years ensued and they became closer, their habits and mannerisms tended to converge so that their laughs, ways of speaking and other behavioral attributes became strikingly similar.
The Dean of Jesus College in 1941 was the Reverend Gardiner Smith, a rather pompous and venerable old gentleman. Upon entry into the college each new student had the "honor" of meeting the Reverend in his plush office. When John first appeared in his office for his scheduled appointment he was immediately asked, "Of what persuasion are you?" John thought briefly, but had to reply saying, "I don't know; no one ever told me." "Well then," responded Smith, "are you of the Church of England?" John once again tried to decide one way or the other but gave up and again responded by saying that he didn't know. The Reverend then sighed deeply and with some impatience asked, "Well then, did you go to chapel at school before coming here?" "Oh yes," John eagerly replied. "We all had to." The Reverend thereupon left the subject, apparently satisfied, concluding that John indeed was a member of the Church of England. When John related this conversation to Peter, he expected that it would elicit some merriment, but instead Peter responded with anger. He had apparently had a similar run-in with the Reverend during his welcoming meeting a couple of years previously, and in response to the latter's insistence had mocked Christianity, affirmed his atheistic beliefs and referred to the Dean as "a silly old fool." Additionally, when a group of religious students, members of the CICU (which Peter pronounced "Kick You") later suggested that he "take Jesus for his steering wheel" he responded by saying "Thank God I'm an atheist" and then retaliated by pretending to try to convert them to atheism. Thus, while Peter was generally tolerant of the beliefs of others, he did not like having these beliefs imposed on him.
John and Peter enjoyed many activities together and when time permitted, they attended plays, films and concerts together. On one occasion they were watching a showing of Olivier's Hamlet in the Cambridge film theater. Although he knew the play well, Peter became increasingly agitated as the plot thickened. At a very intense moment, just as Hamlet was about to stab Polonius, his emotional involvement became too great and Peter blacked out. John, having previously experienced Peter's emotional blackouts did nothing except to wait, and after 5 or 10 minutes Peter came to. Because of these personally unpleasant, emotionally-induced lapses into unconsciousness, Peter later chose to lead a life in which he minimized stressful and excitement-inducing events such as films, television (the "google box") and drama productions.
Quin was a very different sort of person; he was a gentle, quiet person, a Quaker, and during the war, a registered conscientious objector, one of two CO's of the 300 Jesus College students. In these respects he differed from either John or Peter. John enthusiastically entered the service following receipt of his degree while Peter would have willingly laid his life on the line, pistol in hand, to protect England and the free world from Hitler's fascist Germany. However, Quin was a thoughtful man, very moral and straightforward, with a sincere concern for the welfare of mankind, and he ended up devoting much of his life to a profession consistent with his beliefs, one concerned with the entomology of agricultural pests. During the latter part of the war Peter was similarly persuaded to devote himself to pacifistic pursuits, and he consequently conducted research designed to develop antidotes to poisonous gases. In these respects Quin and Peter found common ground. They continued to enjoy each other's company throughout their lives, and as the years ensued, they became very close.
Peter enjoyed playing the violin and consequently met a number of fine student musicians, several of whom were studying science as well as music. With one pianist he spent many enjoyable hours playing sonatas by their favorite composers, Mozart, Bach and Brahms. With two other students he sometimes enjoyed sight reading trios for organ, violin and flute in King's College Chapel. The organist played the piano as though it were a typewriter, but he had a natural gift for the organ and seemed to come alive when he played it as though it were an extension of his four limbs. When they read through a piece of chamber music he sometimes sang the flute or violin part if one of the other two members of the trio had lost his place in the music. This feat in addition to working the two keyboards and the pedals! His ability to keep track of so many musical lines, and to use his feet, hands and voice to express these lines, was almost beyond belief! One must marvel at how strange and individualistic the quality we term "talent" is as the ability of one musician may manifest itself quite differently than that of another. This term can apparently apply to a general area of endeavor like music, art or science, or it can apply to a highly specific subdiscipline of any one of these fields, thus, for example, allowing a musician to play one instrument well but not another, as was the case for this associate who played the piano stiffly but the organ brilliantly. Talent seems to comprise a combination of physical, intellectual and emotional traits very possibly in addition to others, and its development always seems to involve the generation of a fair amount of sweat. While we may be able to understand the nature of talent qualitatively, a quantitative understanding of this most complex of human traits seems beyond hope.
One of Peter's teachers, Cyril Smith, a Lecturer in the Zoology Department and an accomplished pianist, was a much better musician than Peter and used to give him advice regarding musical interpretation. While rehearsing he'd sometimes stop playing and say "Not enough attack!", or "Bring this part out!" and then explain why he felt a different approach would be preferable. It was a novel experience to Peter to intersperse playing with discussions of the music and he gained a greater appreciation of the art of musical interpretation from Cyril. Although he seldom performed in public, Cyril played exceptionally well and could execute wonderfully complex rhythmical passages involving hemiola with 3 beats against 4 or even 5 beats against 7. He particularly enjoyed the complicated contrapuntal lines of the Russian romantics, Mussorgsky, Tschaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev which he quite glibly played. Peter came to appreciate the frequent use of distant key transitions by the late romantics but also realized that in music, he needed the classical convention of a tonal center. When it was absent, as in modern atonal music, many of the dynamic qualities and much of the color seemed to be lost. Without a tonal center it was impossible to move through the different keys, and much of the potential for innovation seemed to be gone. Just as Franz Liszt thought his "tone poem" was the music of the future, the atonal composers, Schönberg, Berg and Webern, thought their innovations would provide the world with the music of the future. However, history has proven them wrong. The music of the future was quite evidently Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and rock and roll, and the atonal idiom has lapsed into relative obscurity. The same year that Peter entered Jesus College, his future associate and collaborator, Jennifer Moyle, entered Girton College. Jennifer and her younger sister, Vivian, who was also to graduate in Biochemistry from Girton, were from Norwich. In the early 1940s women were not allowed membership in the University and consequently did not wear robes; if they wanted to be educated in Cambridge they had to join one of the few women¹s colleges, such as Girton, and conduct themselves as outsiders. The female students by convention usually sat in lecture in the first rows of the lecture halls, but in spite of this fact, the lecturers would usually initiate their lectures with "Gentlemen...." Women could not technically receive degrees upon completion of their undergraduate work. Instead they received a "Title of a Degree." Thus, in 1942 Jennifer received the "Title of the Bachelor of Arts Degree" from Cambridge University. Although it was not considered a real degree by the University, everyone else considered it to be the full equivalent, and only a few years later, partly due to the liberalizing effect of the war in which women had functioned in virtually all capacities, women were formally admitted to the University.
Peter joined the Cambridge University Natural Science Club in 1941, two years after entering the University, and remained a member through 1949. During the intervening years he enjoyed many informal but intense weekly discussions concerning a diversity of scientific and philosophical issues. The club consisted of just a handful of students, but they formed an interesting and varied group coming from all of the different science departments. The directives of the club stated that the object of the meetings should be the cultivation of Natural Science by means of friendly intercourse and mutual instruction. It was limited to Honorary Members and twenty Ordinary Members, of whom not more than eight were to be undergraduates. This club served Peter as a continual source of intellectual stimulation and satisfaction, and some of the scientific papers discussed in the Natural Science Club provided him with kernals for the development of some of his most important concepts concerning the dynamics of vectorial biochemical processes in a living organism. Additionally, and of great importance to Peter personally, some of his longest-lasting friendships developed there.
Ted Cranshaw, a physics student and accomplished pianist, was one of the club's members, and he and Peter became good friends. During the early forties Ted's father had been in the margarine business, and Ted, an idealistic liberal, was bothered because his father was more concerned with the development of techniques designed to add more water to the margarine so as to make bigger profits than how to make better margarine. The group was idealistic and all sympathized with Ted. He later went to America where he participated in the development of the atom bomb. Peter sometimes wondered if this activity was in keeping with or contrary to the idealism of his student years.
Another club members with whom Peter associated was Morris Sugden, an electrophysical chemist interested in ionizing potentials. Morris had entered Jesus College in 1938, one year before Peter came to Cambridge. He and Peter were among the club members most interested in bioelectric phenomena, and they spent many hours together discussing this topic. Morris was another accomplished amateur pianist with whom Peter enjoyed playing chamber music, and hence, in spite of Morris¹s more remote nature, a meaningful bond formed. Throughout the latter part of the war, Morris conducted research on explosives and eventually completed his Ph.D. thesis on this subject. He met a beautiful English lit graduate student who like himself was a liberal bohemian Marxist; their romance led to a stable and happy marriage, and Morris, once quite antiestablishment, became an official of the Shell Oil Company, had a chauffeur, forgot Marxism, and settled in a small village outside Cambridge to eventually become Master of Trinity College.
A third club member, who like Morris and many other Cambridge students professed to be a confirmed Marxist, was a chemist named John Harley-Mason; but John kept horses and smoked expensive cigars which were allowable luxuries in times of war only for those with a sizable private income. Peter used to argue the relative benefits of capitalism versus communism with him. John argued that Communism provided safeguards against exploitation of the masses by the few while Peter suggested that the capitalistic system provided maximal incentive and allowed greater personal freedom. It seemed reasonable that safeguards could be imposed while still allowing the beneficial expression of human nature in a capitalistic society. He further argued that the availability of a private income imposed upon the recipient a social responsibility to achieve to the limits of his capabilities and to contribute to society in a meaningful way. In this respect Peter, like Shelley, was a romantic who found his idealism more important than political ideology. Marxism remained strong in the intellectual community of Cambridge for many years after the war, gradually diminishing in importance, but when Russia marched into Czechoslovakia with tanks to suppress the growing anti-soviet sentiment, all but a few of the remaining Marxist enthusiasts in England became disillusioned with Communism, and Marxist support in Cambridge, and the Communist movement in Britain, fell into oblivion. It had been a very sad day; the events had been tragically related to the world blow by blow by Dubcheck, recorded for the British populace over the BBC.
The participants of the Natural Science Club were among the students at Cambridge who took science most seriously. They were concerned about a broader range of topics than the average student, and they particularly enjoyed discussing the philosophy of science. The sort of thoughtful intellectualism fostered by the club atmosphere served as much as anything to advance the intellectual capabilities of the participants. Almost all of them have gone on to become Fellows of the Royal Society. A primary activity of the Natural Science's Club was to read and discuss exciting publications selected for discussion by the participants. Peter was very enthusiastic about the Natural Science Club and invited his friends to join in and share his interests. On one occasion he asked his good friend, John Gayer-Anderson, to present a paper. The opportunity appealed to John's sense of humor, and he chose to discuss a 19th century German doctor who professed to use lines of force to heal his patients merely by touching them. Both John and Peter enjoyed the discussion, finding the topic quite amusing, but no one else did, as the topic has been too esoteric and unscholarly for their tastes. John was not asked to return for a repeat performance. While Peter was generally serious and felt a strong sense of social responsibility, John was the opposite and believed that life should be approached and could only be enjoyed as a result of the full development of one's sense of humor. While some people may be meant for great achievement, John felt that his destiny, like that of Sir Humphrey Davies, was to enjoy the pleasures of this world.
A primary activity of the Natural Science Club was to read and discuss exciting publications selected for discussion by the participants. One such paper, written by Lundgard in 1942, discussed the process already known as oxidative phosphorylation. In this process, substrate molecules are oxidized in organelles of animal and plant cells called mitochondria, and the consequent extraction of electrons from the substrates is followed by passage of these electrons down an electron transfer chain to molecular oxygen. In this process in which electrons pass from a "high energy" or less stable state to a "low energy" or more stable state, the chemical energy currency of the cell, adenosine triphosphate or ATP is somehow made. It was not known, however, how chemical energy in the form of ATP could be synthesized during the flow of electrons down the electron transport chain. Lundgard made the interesting suggestion that proton (H+) movement across the membrane might somehow be coupled to electron flow. This suggestion, although vague in conception, provided one of the notions for Peter's chemiosmotic hypothesis put forth later in 1961, but Lundgard's idea was in turn based on considerations of the fuel cell as first described by William Grove in 1839. Interestingly, Lundgard's ideas led to more explicit concepts later put forth by A. Ogston and R.E. Davis, two physical biochemists at Oxford, in which two oxidation-reduction reactions (also called "redox" processes) were suggested to be coupled to a distinct chemical reaction in a process which involved the flow of H+ across the membrane. The two redox reactions were thought to involve the respiratory chain while the chemical reaction was proposed to involve an enzyme system catalyzing substrate level phosphorylation with an energy-rich intermediate. The two important conceptual advances made by Ogston and Davis were the realization that the oxidative phosphorylation process could involve two independent processes connected by proton gradients, and that the functioning of one of these processes could drive the other. The main aspect of this hypothesis which subsequently was shown to be incorrect was the suggestion that substrate level phosphorylation, the direct coupling of phosphate bond formation to the dissolution of another high energy chemical bond, is involved. Nevertheless, Ogston and Davis provided another step forward in the development of a conceptual framework for Mitchell's more accurate proposal of direct coupling of proton movement to the two redox reactions, indirectly coupled to the primary formation of the high energy phosphate bond of ATP in a second process which also involved proton movement, but in the opposite direction as in the redox process. Examination of the progression of these theoretical hypotheses concerning oxidative phosphorylation which eventually led to correct formulation of the process allows one to recognize a dependency of each new conceptual advance on the preceding advances put forth by others. Thus, in science, one always stands on the shoulders of his or her predecessors; it's very difficult to be wholly original.
Another paper discussed in the Natural Science Club dealt with the symmetry and asymmetry of organic compounds. In this paper, Professor Ogston argued that a protein such as an enzyme could bind a symmetric compound (a substrate) in a way such that reaction could occur only from one side of the molecule. Such events could give rise, following reaction, to centers of asymmetry in otherwise fully symmetric molecules. These arguments were subsequently validated by detailed experimentation. Thus, enzymes, receptors and transport proteins must recognize their substrates and ligands as a result of multiple interactions between the protein and the substrate. The discussions of Ogston's novel concepts by the club members thus provided Peter with the basis for understanding the specificity of enzyme action and influenced his thinking about the specificities of transport proteins.
Soon after Peter entered Cambridge as an undergraduate, he became intrigued with early Greek philosophy. The Greek experimental view of truth, as contained in the teachings of Socrates seemed to provide a foundation for the open-minded scientific attitudes of today. Thus, the foundation of our intellectual society existed some 2500 years ago! What an incredibly active intellectual environment Athens must have provided at that time, allowing development of the models and concepts on which modern science is still based! Like many students of the time, Peter was interested in fundamental questions posed initially by the Greeks such as: What makes the difference between a person and an inanimate thing? What is the nature of life? What is this feeling of free will? How do we know who or what we are? Thus, he became a student of both science and philosophy particularly as these disciplines related to our human existence; he became inquisitive about a diversity of natural phenomena, with biological processes at the center of his attention.
At that time he came across the book The Meaning of Meaning by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards (5th edition, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London, 1938). Peter was interested in the relationship between words and objects, and as a biologist he wanted to be able to define life. Without the word, we cannot think about or describe the object, and the human mind is the organ that allows us to form a connection between the word and the object. This fact suggests the absence of absolute truths, for truths are of necessity relationships between symbols and things or events, and these must be conceived or connected by a thought process in the brain. Thus, for example, if one wants to keep mental track of an object which is undergoing continual change, the object must retain a single name, but the observer must recognize that a dynamic process is occurring. The Greek philosopher, Herakleitos, said, "You cannot step twice into the same stream because although the river is the same by name, the water has flowed on." Plato said the same thing but more generally and concisely: "Nothing ever is, everything is becoming. Thus, all things are passing, and nothing abides." And Aristotle reiterated: "All things are in motion, nothing steadfastly is." It seemed that this central principle applied to man and all other living things! Peter wanted to discuss this important point with people in the philosophy department as well as in the science departments, but they seemed largely uninterested.
These ideas encompass both chemistry and physiology as well as philosophy. Chemistry relates to the states of molecules and their transformations (statids; scalar quantities) but is insufficient as a sole description of life. Living things are among the flowing things (fluctids or vectorial quantities). As noted by the poet Walter De La Mere and quoted by one of Peter's early Biochemistry teachers,
"It's a very strange thing, as strange as can be, What ever Miss T eats Turns into Miss T."
Thus, the definition of life must encompass both scalar processes (chemical interconversions or metabolism) and vectorial processes (nutrient acquisition, product release, and all other transmembrane transport phenomena). Further, these processes must occur in a spatially-defined compartment (the cell or organism) maintained in an open system (the environment). Continual exchange of energy and matter between the living and the non living compartments is a prerequisite for life. Several years later, Peter formally put these ideas into a conceptual framework and prepared an article on the subject which was published in 1957 as part of the International Symposium on the Origin of Life which took place in Moscow the preceding year¦. This article describes the relationships between scalar and vectorial quantities as applied to living things, a theme that captured Peter's attention over the next several years and encompassed all of his principal scientific hypotheses.
At the end of his second undergraduate year at Cambridge, Peter took his first exam in Natural Sciences which included Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology and Biochemistry. His examiners were not very impressed with his performance, and he received a third class pass. They felt he expressed too many ideas and did not focus sufficiently on experimental fact. In their estimation, his interest in flow systems and his understanding of fairly abstract notions such as statids and fluctids was not likely to prove useful. The fact that Einstein had received a comparable low mark at this stage in his education proved reassuring to Peter. On the other hand, the additional fact that many less worthy students of the sciences had also received low marks did not seem to concern him at all!
At the end of his fourth year Peter took his second exam in Biochemistry and received an upper second class pass. This was substantially better than the evaluation of his performance on the first exam, but the results still did not indicate appreciation by his examiners of a first class mind. The value of his ideas and qualities were apparently not recognized by his superiors. Once again, his less than exemplary performance may have reflected his preoccupation with unconventional ideas and philosophy. Peter Mitchell never did fit into any one category of science. Rather, he was, and continues to be, a human being who is curious about the world and the nature of humanity.
"Art is as natural an artifice as Nature:
the truth of fiction is that Fact is fantasy;
the made-up story is a model of the world."
John Barth, Letters
Peter and Jennifer
David Keilin and Malcolm Dixon
