THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



FEBRUARY, 1914 



THE PHYSICAL LABORATORY AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS 



TO CIVILIZATION 



Br Professor ARTHUR GORDON WEBSTER 



CLARK UNIVERSITY 



ALTHOUGH physics is one of the oldest and most respectable of 

 the sciences, it must be acknowledged with regret that many 

 otherwise well-educated persons have but a vague idea of its scope, and 

 the question, "What is a physical laboratory and what does one do in 

 it ? " is by no means a rare one. The science of physics or natural phi- 

 losophy, as it was called by Newton, properly includes the study of all 

 natural phenomena that are not concerned with life, as distinguished 

 from biology, which undertakes to investigate the phenomena of living 

 organisms. To speak more particularly, physics deals with mechanics or 

 the phenomena of motion and its causes, including those motions which 

 we characterize as sound; with heat, light, electricity and magnetism 

 and those new phenomena which have to do with radio-activity and the 

 recently discovered new sorts of radiation. It is thus impossible to 

 make any classification of physics which shall exclude astronomy, which 

 is divided into celestial mechanics or the study of the motions of the 

 sun, planets, comets and stars, and the new science of astrophysics, or 

 the study of the physical and chemical constitution of the stars mainly 

 by means of the spectroscope invented only about fifty years ago, or 

 which shall exclude chemistry, which now more than ever before is con- 

 cerning itself with the relations of different elements and their com- 

 pounds to phenomena of heat, electricity and light. Geology has mainly 

 to do with the applications of physics to the surface of the earth. 

 Nevertheless, for purposes of convenience it has become customary to 

 divide off these other sciences from physics proper and to have them 

 studied and taught by separate professors. 



If we examine the history of physics we shall find that this division 



VOL. LXXXVI.— 8. 



