Learning Insights

Ockham is a tiny village nestled in the richly wooded Surrey countryside. It boasts a medieval church, a green and a lovely gastropub, The Black Swan.

In December 1943, the world was burning. In the Soviet Union, great tank armies clashed. Across Europe and Asia, millions were fighting. The United States was on a war footing, transforming itself into an industrial machine with the sole object of defeating Japan and Germany. In the state of New Mexico, at Los Alamos, a project so secret and terrible that it would change the course of history was brewing; the first atomic bomb was under development. Barely thirty miles away, a different invention, one that would bring joy to millions, was waiting to be born.

If you had the power to see the future, would you dare to use it? Or would you turn aside, deny it, or try and forget everything you had seen?  History sometimes reveals “demonstration events” – moments when a window opens upon tomorrow. For a moment, the cloud cover breaks, and we can clearly see the shape of things to come.