INTRODUCTION 



I COUNT it an honour to be allowed to write a few words of 

 introduction for the English edition of Professor Lenard's 

 historical studies of the great men of science. It is now 

 over twenty years since I worked as a research student in 

 his laboratory, and time has dulled many memories, but the 

 recollection of his inspiriting and wholehearted devotion to 

 the service of science, of his generous enthusiasm for the 

 work of men of genius, living and dead, and of his wonderful 

 experimental skill and resource, is still bright. Ramsauer, 

 Hausser and Kossel, whose names have since become 

 famous, were among his research students at that time, and 

 the physics colloquium, with Professor Lenard's illumin- 

 ating and significant interjections, comments and questions, 

 made the pursuit of scientific truth seem an exciting and 

 supremely desirable quest. It was on such occasions that 

 Professor Lenard's interest in the history of science came 

 particularly to our notice. Who had first shown the way 

 here, what had he actually done, how was he led to do it ? 

 -such questions, to which our professor too often had to 

 supply the answer himself, brought before us the great- 

 ness of past workers and the significance of their achieve- 

 ments. Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Hertz (who was Lenard's 

 teacher): such men became living figures for us, and their 

 tasks and successes appeared as part of an organic structure, 

 and not as an empty record of past times. 



It is not often that one who, like Professor Lenard, has 

 won for himself an assured place in the history of science, 

 undertakes a systematic appreciation of the work of his pre- 

 decessors, of the kind which we have before us in this book. 



