40 WHAT IS LIFE? 



to the prime factors. But when we ask what there is 

 in Nature which responds to these products 36 and 64, 

 we find there is absolutely nothing. 



The fundamental idea is here very boldly or 

 audaciously stated, and will probably be repudiated 

 by some physicists ; it is, however, true. We only 

 desire to expose an order of thought which we think, 

 when carried to an extreme, is pernicious, and which 

 is, we believe, the stumbling-block to the physicist. 

 Further illustrations will amplify this order of thought. 1 



Again, we may have a measure which holds a hundred 

 cubic centimetres of a fluid, and the fluid may be found 



1 In the author's work " What is Heat " he severely criticizes the 

 ideas of physicists, in attempting to express the molecular and other 

 reactions in Nature by algebraical formula?. Now physicists are 

 questioning if it is a correct mode of procedure. See the discussion 

 in Nature, in the latter part of 1896 and early part of 1897. In 

 a letter to the editor of Nature, January 14tb, 1897. Prof. Lodge 

 states (quoting a reply by Mr. Gumming), " ' The multiplication of 

 one length by another length (or, more generally, of one concrete 

 quantity by another) is abhorrent to the mind of ' certain mathe- 

 maticians. Quite true, I know it, The idea was abhorrent to the 

 mind of the late Mr. Todhuiiter, and I think that Prof. Greenhill 

 has expressed himself in the same sense. But what then ? That is 

 exactly why the idea requires driving home ; and until it is driven 

 home there will be no real clearness or simplicity in dealing either 

 with physical quantities themselves or with their numerical specifica- 

 tion in terms of given ' units.' " This is a delightfully ambiguous 

 " definition of darkness" by Prof. Lodge. Later on- (Nature, 

 February 25th, 1897) Prof. Fitzgerald deals with the absurd word 

 " mass," as used by the physicist the definition of which he calls 

 " huggermugger," and also draws attention to the fact that the 

 student is " demoralized by having to swallow undigested a term of 

 which neither he nor his teacher has a clear and distinct idea "... 

 which " no fellow can understand." Thus now we are beginning to 

 see the physicist evolving into the man of common sense. 



