Holmes was heroic as much for the obstacles he overcame as for the results he achieved. By the 1920s, when he was in the prime of his career, geology had slipped out of fashion – physics was the new excitement of the age – and had become severely underfunded, particularly in Britain, its spiritual birthplace. At Durham University, Holmes was for many years the entire geology department. Often he had to borrow or patch together equipment in order to pursue his radiometric dating of rocks. At one point, his calculations were effectively held up for a year while he waited for the university to
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Struggles in Arthur Holmes life
