Kildare physicist writes book for kids
Dr Shane Bergin, Associate Professor of Physics at UCD, and now author.
“I grew up just outside Newbridge, in Great Connell – mam and dad (Siobhan and Philip) are still there – and attended both the Patrician primary and secondary schools,” said Shane.
“Dad was a scientist and he used to do lab work for the likes of Ned Goings or the Baroda Stud … and my first taste of science was going there with my Dad when I was very young.
“God, we had great craic, and the free run of the place in the days before much health and safety,” laughed Shane.
“I never missed an opportunity to look down a microscope, and the smell of agar plates always reminds me of being six or seven years old and watching him work.
“On the other side, his father was a mechanic in the army, and was retired when I was small so he had lots of time to show me how mechanical things work.
“And I learnt to do baking with my grandmother, so it was a great grounding for me and my brothers (Derek and Philip).
The characters from the book - Luke and Ruby - are named in honour of my niece and nephew, who also live outside Newbridge with their parents Derek and Philip.
“Ruby is six and a half, and her cousin Luke is four,” a detail he made sure to get in.
And your formal education?
“School was fantastic! I only have good memories, and I’m not surprised so many of us went on to do sciences,” he said “We had wonderful teachers like Mr Duggan my physics teacher, and Pat O’Leary for Maths.
“He was brilliant, and he would have us in every Sunday morning in the run-up to the exams, but he knew the only way was hard work.
“My brothers Derek and Philip went to the same school and all of us ended up studying for degrees connected to numbers, in science, engineering and accountancy,” he added.
Unsurprisingly, Shane’s former school has huge heritage in the field, as one of the most influential female chemists ever to have lived Kathleen Londsdale was born in the house in 1903 in what is now the parish centre and was once the Patrician Brothers’ school.
So why the book?
“I wrote the book for the eight-year-old me,” said Shane.
“When I was that age I had all the science books, but they were all the facts and figures.
“But like the kid watching the football, and wanting to go out and be one, I wrote this book to encourage kids to do it (science) themselves.
“All we see in Hollywood is the mad scientist with the mad hair, and I wanted to give the kids a cosier version,” he offered.
In the book the kids discover their grandad and grandma were scientists, and so they become detectives finding experiments in each part of the house.
The would be things like noticing and cataloguing birds and insects, predicting what will float or sink, making homemade musical instruments, following procedure when baking, measuring reaction speed in sport, and patience when growing plants from seeds.
If you are a parent or grandparent, aunt or uncle and want to spend time with the children in your family, offers eight fun activities.
The fictional aspect of the book allows the reader to imagine the scene, and in each chapter, the author does not give the scientific game away before asking the reader to think about it themselves and have a go at figuring it out.
After that, the reader turns the page and sees what Luke and Ruby did to figure things out.
“The kids can set up these experiments at zero expense and with no plastic!” said Shane.
“It’s about kids developing skills to notice things and see how things work.”
Shane will be available to meet and greet in Woodbine Books in Kilcullen – “where Dawn runs a great shop” – from 2pm on Saturday, 29 November. The book is now also available in all Kildare libraries, and is ideal for gifting next month for that Seasonal Hullaballoo.
