2 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 



The research workers are makers of modern history as no other 

 body of men are. The difference between the conditions under which 

 our forefathers lived three hundred years ago and those under which 

 we live to-day is due to the research workers. The layman little realizes 

 what an influence individual men among these research workers exercise 

 upon his daily life. In ordinary conversation the name of Shakespeare 

 is heard more frequently than that of Newton and students of the great 

 dramatist will be surprised to be told that Shakespeare as a factor in 

 determining their lives is a bagatelle compared to Newton. The thought 

 of the great scientist, as a matter of fact, permeates our civilization 

 and can be traced distinctly in a muHitude of conditions which surround 

 our every-day life. To justify our statement, it suffices to refer briefly 

 to Newton's discoveries of the calculus and the law of gravitation. The 

 calculus is the basis of the greater part of higher mathematical analysis. 

 It is the most powerful of all instruments in handling geometrical 

 problems and it has opened up new territories in geometry which are 

 all its own. What I want more particularly here to refer to, however, 

 is the role which the calculus plays in connection with physical pheno- 

 mena. Its aid is invoked in questions which relate to motion, light, heat, 

 electricity. The principles of dynamics are formulated in terms of its 

 notation. Unfortunately it has had a share in the development of 

 modern artillery, for the theory of projectiles is an application of the 

 calculus to the law of gravitation. It has had its place in the advances 

 which have brought us the electric light, the trolley, the power house, 

 telegraphy and telephony, both with and without wire. When we read 

 the despatches and cablegrams in our morning paper we do not pause to 

 remind ourselves that the thought of Newton is one of the factors which 

 has made this possible. No more does it occur to the baseball enthusiast 

 that he is under any debt to Newton when he stands before the news- 

 paper office down town and scans the latest baseball bulletin. 



Transportation by sea, by land and by air, has much for which to 

 thank Newton. The calculus had nothing to do with the invention of 

 the steam engine by James Watt. It has, however, done important 

 service during the last half century or more in handling problems relating 

 to steam engines and turbines where fundamental principles have been 

 involved. It has had its effect on naval construction. It is involved 

 in the general question of the relation between shape, power and speed 

 in connection with a vessel. It is essential to the study of the strains 

 and stresses in a ship's members. Navigation, too, depends on astro- 

 nomical data the obtaining of which involves the use of the calculus. 

 Our clocks and watches are regulated by data so obtained. It has had 

 its share in the development of the automobile engine. It proves itself 



