PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 99 



STOEED ENERGY 

 Feancis B. DAiSriELS,* The Pullman Company, Chicago 



Sir Ray Lankester, in one of the interesting papers 

 published under the title, "Science From an Easy 

 Chair," complains that "glib writers in various journ- 

 als" "with a false assumption of knowledge" "pour 

 forth" "twaddle" concerning science. It should be said 

 that he puts twaddle in quotation marks, also, ^vrth the 

 parenthesis "(if I may use an expressive term)". May 

 not these "glib" journalists come back with a complaint 

 that "glib" scientists, of high reputation for actual know- 

 ledge, do worse, in that they teach "twaddle" to journal- 

 ists, that is, to people g-enerally who are not specialists in 

 science? Is not stored energy an example? It is taught 

 to non-specialists by writers of high scientific reputation. 



Energy is an important word in the technical litera- 

 ture of the science of physics. It is treated of as existing 

 in two forms : kinetic and potential. In books written by 

 scientists to attract, or edify, purchasers among the gen- 

 eral public, potential often approaches in meaning, or is 

 transformed into, stored. This meaning has had a curi- 

 ous effect. It has inspired flights of fancy which may, 

 perhaps, be called poetry, in the sense of "imaginative 

 language, or composition, whether expressed rythmically 

 or in prose" (Webster). At the same time it has operat- 

 ed as a warning against venturing upon prosaic data. 

 The following specimens are culled from "Natl^ee's Mi- 

 racles'' (Gray, 1899), "Matter and Energy" (Soddy, 

 1912), "Science and Materialism" (Elliott, 1919), 

 "Creatb'e Chemistry" (Slosson, 1920), and "Histori- 

 cal Geology" (Schuchert, 1920) : 



"These great" coal "beds of stored-up sun-energy* 

 * * warm our houses, * drive the machinery of our fac- 

 tories, * send the locomotives flying across the continents 

 and the steamships over the oceans." 



"Energy may sleep indefinitely * * *. In the potential 

 form, in coal, it has persisted for untold ages ; once re- 

 leased, heat is the sole ultimate product * * *. The power 



* Died April 18, 1922. 



