Frank James is Professor of the History of Science at the Royal Institution. He has written widely on science and technology in the nineteenth century and how they relate to other areas of society and culture, for example technology, art, religion and the military. He is particularly interested in the processes by which knowledge created in a laboratory is applied in practical situations, an area where the Royal Institution played an enormously significant role. He is editor of the correspondence Michael Faraday (of which four out of six volumes have so far been published) and The Common Purposes of Life ? a collection of essays on the Royal Institution. He is Past President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology and is Past President of the British Society for the History of Science.