General Introduction to the papers

Unfortunately all such acts of bravado, at least on my part, came to an end the following year because we were expected to choose just three subjects to pursue at Advanced level and I chose chemistry, physics and mathematics. This meant that from the tender age of fifteen I was destined to never again study history. As for philosophy, this would not even have been an option had I chosen to go the way of the humanities. Unlike in the French system where philosophy is almost synonymous with the humanities, the study of philosophy in the British system was completely unheard of at least in the vast majority of secondary schools. 

After struggling for two years in my chosen A level subjects, I applied to do chemistry at university. There again British undergraduate education was very much about depth at the expense of breadth. There were absolutely no required subjects from the humanities or even general studies for science students. In fact it was something of an effort to convince my tutors to allow me to take units in astronomy, geophysics and even physics. 

1 continued to toil with my very specific problem on the quadrupole moments of small molecules and I left at the end of that same academic year. I then spent the next two years carrying out research in experimental physical chemistry at the University of Southampton, to which I was even less suited than work on a specific problem in theoretical chemistry. 

I was interviewed by the head of the History and Philosophy of Science department, Heinz Post, as well as Michael Redhead the philosopher of physics. They took little time to convince me that I was not really equipped to carry out research into the foundations of physics but Post in particular was generous enough to suggest my working in what seemed at the time the less glamorous area of the foundations of chemistry. After thinking about this for a couple of weeks I began 

I was also at the right place at the right time because other people who had been independently working on various aspects of what became 

---