Genuine Scientific Progress is Usually Collaborative Even if the Nature of Fame, and Fiction, is to Single out Individuals, Writes Quentin Cooper.

It is sixty years since Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor became Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the Second. Sixty years in which the planet has changed beyond recognition. As part of the Diamond Jubilee festivities the BBC asked the public to help select the sixty “New Elizabethans” – living or dead, British or not – who have had the most impact on life during her (or possibly Her) reign. Which in effect means fifty-nine since HRH herself is pretty much a shoe-in.''