Ri Discourse: Bill Coates - 1948-1984: My Years Between

About this video

From the Prep Room to the podium.

In this unique event from 1984, Ri Lecture Assistant Bill Coates moves from the Prep Room to the podium to present a Friday Evening Discourse.

Aided by Director George Porter, Bill demonstrates his favourite experiments from his many years supporting the live lectures in the Faraday Theatre before recounting his favourite tales from behind-the-scenes at the Ri.

Amongst anecdotes about eggs, marbles and disappearing electric eels, Bill recreates the "curly-headed babies" – a demonstration of electrostatics previously performed by physicist Sir William Lawence Bragg – before washing his hands in molten lead and attempting to shoot a monkey out of a tree.

Bill Coates played a unique role in the history of the Ri and served under five Directors, including Sir Lawrence Bragg and George Porter – seen here performing his assistant's traditional supporting role. Originally employed in the Davy-Faraday Laboratory, Bill moved from Senior Experimental Officer to Lecture Assistant in 1957.

A master of invention and improvisation, his many talents and unquenchable enthusiasm for science helped bring numerous lectures and demonstrations to life. As former Director John Meurig Thomas wrote in tribute to his former colleague, "the Ri will never be quite the same without Bill Coates".