DIVISION C PHYSICAL SCIENCE 



(Hall 4, September 20, 10 a. m.) 

 SPEAKER: PROFESSOR ROBERT S. WOODWARD, Columbia University. 



THE UNITY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE 



BY ROBERT SIMPSON WOODWARD 



[Robert Simpson Woodward, Ph.D., Sc.D., LL.D., President of the Carnegie In- 

 stitution of Washington, b. Rochester, Mich., 1849. C.E. University of Michi- 

 gan, 1872; Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1892; Honorary LL.D. University 

 of Wisconsin, 1904; Sc.D., University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia Univer- 

 sity, 1905. Assistant engineer, U. S. Lake Survey, 1872-82; assistant astro- 

 nomer, U. S. Transit of Venus Commission, 1882-84; astronomer, geographer, 

 and chief geographer, U. S. Geological Survey, 1884-90; assistant, U. S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, 1890-93; Professor of Mechanics and Mathematical 

 Physics, Columbia University, 1893-1905; Dean of School of Pure Science, 

 ibid., 1895-1905; President of Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1905. 

 Member of National Academy of Sciences; Past President and Treasurer (since 

 1894) of American Association for the Advancement of Science; Past President 

 of American Mathematical Society and of New York Academy of Sciences ; mem- 

 ber of Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, Geological Society 

 of America, Physical Society of America, and Washington Academy of Sciences. 

 Author of Smithsonian Geographical Tables ; Higher Mathematics (with Mansfield 

 Merriman) ; also of many Government reports and numerous papers and ad- 

 dresses on subjects in astronomy, geodesy, mathematics, mathematical physics, 

 and education.] 



THERE is a tradition, still tacitly sanctioned even by men of science, 

 that there have been epochs when the more eminent minds were able 

 to compass the entire range of knowledge. Amongst the vanishing 

 heroic figures of the past it seems possible, indeed, to discern, here 

 and there, a Galileo, a Huygens, a Descartes, a Leibnitz, a Newton, 

 a Laplace, or a Humboldt, each capable, at least, of summing up with 

 great completeness the state of contemporary knowledge. Traditions, 

 however, are generally more or less mythical, and the myth in this 

 case seems to be in flat contradiction with the fact that there never 

 was such an epoch, that the great masters of our distinguished pre- v 

 decessors were, after all, much like the masters of to-day, simply 

 the leading specialists of their times. But however this may be, if 

 we grant the possibility of the requisite attainments, even in a few 

 individuals at any epoch, we shall speedily conclude that there never 

 was an epoch so much in need of them as the immediate present, 

 when the divisional speakers of this Congress are called upon to 

 explain the unities which pervade the ever-widening and largely 

 diverse fields of their several domains. 



