I’m almost ashamed to say I just saw the subject of this post for the first time recently.
However, in mitigation, it’s just occurred to me that I seldom walked in its location, University Place, off University Avenue, until the past few years, and it’s been less than obvious in that time, thanks to extensive building works which have been carried out around the whole area in those years. I think this is the first time I’ve ever walked here without road works, fences, stacks of building materials, and Portakabins littering the area.
This memorial to Joseph Black is mounted on the north wall of the fairly extensive Joseph Black Building, and is (VERY) roughly estimate to be about 10 m wide by 20 m high – it’s not small.
I’d planned to go back for a ‘proper’ pic, but this one from my worst camera came out well, so appears here.
A low-relief portrait memorial of Joseph Black was sculpted by Benno Schotz in 1953 and incorporated into the north wall. The building was renamed the Joseph Black Building in 1997. A pioneering Chemist and University lecturer from 1756-1766, he first identified carbon dioxide and carried out pioneering research on latent and specific heat.
Joseph Black Building
For anyone interested in computers, it seems this building accommodated the University’s second computer, an English Electric KDF9, one of nine noted to be in use in UK universities and technical colleges in 1967.
It had about 20,000 transistors, 192 kB of memory, and didn’t quite fit in the pocket, at a little over 4.7 (metric) tons.
The University’s first computer was a DEUCE, commissioned in 1957, installed in 1958, it ran for seven years. This was also the first electric computer at a Scottish University.
Secret Scotland 