5 November 2009
Bouncing bombs and a brilliant brain
Dr Iain Murray is available for interview on request.
Sir Barnes Wallis is best known as the ‘boffin’ behind the ingenious bouncing bomb used by 617 Squadron in the famous Dambusters raid, but his brilliant legacy stretches far beyond this one considerable achievement.
His engineering genius - which extended to designing airships, novel aircraft structures and
special weapons to long-range supersonic aircraft as well as registering an extensive collection of
patents - is explored in a new book by Dr Iain Murray, a lecturer at the University of Dundee’s School of Computing.
In the new hardback, Bouncing-Bomb Man: The Science of Sir Barnes Wallis, Dr Murray describes the huge breadth of Sir Barnes’ work, showing how his genius brought entirely new ideas into these fields, and reveals the science and engineering expertise that he deployed to make them work.
Because many of his later designs were never built, Dr Murray has used his computing experience to construct them for the first time - as 3D computer-generated models. The result is a compelling glimpse inside the design portfolio of one of Britain’s greatest ever engineering geniuses.
He explained how he first came to be interested in the work of Wallis.
'My first experience of Wallis was from seeing ‘The Dam Busters’ film on TV, and that interested me enough to read his biography which showed how many other projects he was involved in,' he said.
'His breadth of achivements is quite remarkable, and he held more than 140 patents. He was able to use his wide knowledge to bring old ideas into new areas - the key to innovation.'
'After the war, Wallis championed the use of tail-less ‘swing wing’ aircraft, and some of his ideas were eventually taken up in the Tornado. But what he really wanted to develop was a long-range supersonic airliner - if he had designed Concorde his way, it would have been able to reach Australia in about 5 hours! This later work is fascinating, and I was keen to write about it in the book.'
Sir Barnes Neville Walliswas born in Derbyshire in 1887. He trained as a marine engineer before working on airship and aircraft design with the famous engineering firm, Vickers.After the war, Wallis led aeronautical research at the British Aircraft Corporation until he was persuaded to retire in 1971.
His place in history was secured by the crucial role he played in the Allies’ victory in WWII.He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1945 and was knighted in 1968. He died in 1979, aged 92.
Dr Murray’s book is the first to describe the entire life’s work of Wallis in detail. The author asks where the inspiration for Sir Barnes’ technical achievements came from, what the contemporary alternatives were, and why his solutions were invariably better.
He describes how the designs performed and the results of their use - including airships, geodetic aircraft, the ‘bouncing bombs’, the ‘earthquake bombs’, supersonic aircraft designs, telescopes, cargo carriers and bridges, as well as his sports and medical projects.
In addition to being a lecturer in Applied Computing at Dundee, Dr Murray is the chair of the Tayside & Fife Branch of the British Science Association, and a member of the Association’s Council.
Several years ago, he acted as a consultant for an episode of the ITV drama series Foyle’s War, which featured a group working on the ‘bouncing bomb’.
Bouncing-Bomb Man: The Science of Sir Barnes Wallisis published by Haynes, and is available from Amazon and all good bookshops, priced £25.
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Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
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