Sir Robert Edwards, the polymath of IVF

Few people have a lasting impact after their death. There are artists whose images resonate for generations, writers whose words continue to speak beyond a lifetime. Scientists too achieve that distinction, not in their creative appeal but in the living legacy they leave to the people behind. Professor Sir Robert Edwards was one such scientist, an inspiration in reproductive medicine whose achievements today may surely be marked by at least 20 million children conceived by IVF since the first 47 years ago. As we celebrate the centenary of his birth, this paper sees Bob Edwards, as can be seen in history's other great men of science, as a polymath, a scientist whose work and creativity spread beyond the learning of a single discipline and into a labyrinth of connected human interests fused by a panoramic vision and rigorous intellect.