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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1910. 



THE CAVENDISH LABORATORY. 



A History of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1871-1910. 

 Pp. xi + 342. (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 

 1910.) Price 75. 6d. net. 



THE occasion of this book is the fact that on 

 December 22, 1909, Sir J. J. Thomson completed 

 the twenty-fifth year of his tenure of the Cavendish 

 professorship of experimental physics in the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge. As the editors state in their pre- 

 face, the suggestion was made by some of the prcv- 

 fessor's immediate colleagues that the event should be 

 celebrated in some way which would commemorate a 

 tenure so long and so full of achievement. Hence 

 this history of the laboratory over which Thomson has 

 presided for the greater part of its existence. 



The general plan has been to divide the time covered 

 by the history into periods, each of which has been 

 treated by an author intimately acquainted with its 

 events. The result is a marvellously interesting set 

 of records. If the history had been written by one 

 hand only, it would no doubt have been more con- 

 tinuous and concise, but it would have lost materially 

 in charm and in value. As it is, the reader can well 

 agine himself in the company of a number of friends 

 ho have played important parts in a campaign, and 

 ho now relate in turn what they did and saw. And, 

 if course, the campaign has been full of important 

 events. Ever\' student of physical science has been 

 aware in a general sense of what he owes to the 

 forward movements made in the Cavendish Laboratory. 

 Yet in all probability even those who are best 

 acquainted with the history of modern physics will 

 find evidence in this volume of a greater debt than 

 they had imagined. The list of papers published from 

 the laboratory, a list to be found at the end of the 

 book, is simply astonishing ; it shows important addi- 

 tions made to every branch of physics. The names of 

 the authors and workers in the laboratory include those 

 of nearly all the best-known English physicists of 

 to-day, and of many from abroad. In their contribu- 

 tions to the book itself the various writers give us 

 something which is welcome and valuable. They 

 bring about us the atmosphere of the place. We see 

 the continual and unwear}'ing struggle with the diffi- 

 culties on that road which Maxwell and Thomson and 

 their fellow-workers felt sure was the road to success. 

 We realise their hopes and disappointments and suc- 

 cesses as they try one line of attack after another ; we 

 share in the triumph of the final unearthing of the 

 electron and in the rapid progress which followed on 

 that unique discovery. 



The stor}- of the building of the laborator}- is told 

 by Fitzpatrick and Whetham, who also write of the 

 commencement of instruction in practical physics at a 

 time when there was hardly a precedent in such work 

 to serve as guide. Schuster describes the period of 

 CJerk Maxwell, whose commanding genius set a 

 standard for his professorship and his laboratory. Two 

 passages of Maxwell's writing are quoted repeatedly in 

 book; they have clearlv been acknowledged as 



the 



directions to his successors. The one is drawn from 



NO. 2146, VOL. 8sl 



his inaugural address, and defines the aims and 

 methods of experimental inquiry. The other is a flash 

 of insight, the product of his brilliant work on electro- 

 magnetic theory. He saw that the phenomena of the 

 electric discharge when better understood would 

 " throw great light on the nature of electricity as well 

 as on the nature of gases and of the medium pervad- 

 ing space." It is remarkable how fully this has been 

 realised and how each one of the three questions which 

 he mentions has since been illuminated by investiga- 

 tions in the direction which he points out. Best of 

 all, a great part of this work has been done in the 

 Cavendish Laboratory under the guidance of the man 

 in whose honour this book has been written. Glaze- 

 brook writes of the fine work which was done under 

 Lord Rayleigh, work characterised by Rayleigh's 

 recognition that the accurate determination of electric 

 standard had become a pressing matter. In 1884 Thom- 

 son succeeded Rayleigh. Thomson gives, in a chapter 

 which is all too short, a survey of the twenty-five years 

 that followed. It is naturally one of the most in- 

 teresting chapters in the book. We read his own 

 account of his work and of the gradual evolution of 

 his principal discoveries, of his fellow- workers, of the 

 system of teaching at the Cavendish, and of the classes 

 that grew so rapidly under his rule. 



No doubt Sir Joseph Thomson could hardly be 

 trusted to write the full histc«y of the doings in the 

 laboratory during his own occupation of the Caven- 

 dish chair. That has been done by four men — 

 Newall, Rutherford, C. T. R. Wilson, and Campbell, 

 each closely concerned in the inquiries of the period 

 which he has discussed. Newall describes the years 

 between 1885 and 1894, when the interest centres 

 round the general attack on the problem of the electric 

 discharge. Rutherford writes of the three years of 

 intense activity, 1895-8, when the position was 

 stormed, the electron was captured, and Rontgen's 

 X-rays supplied such a ready means of investigating 

 phenomena in which the electron was concerned. 

 C. T. R. Wilson describes the events of 1899-1902, in- 

 cluding the elaboration and use of the condensation 

 method which he himself did so much to perfect. 

 Campbell shows the attempts to apply the new know- 

 ledge to " the fundamental problem of modem physics, 

 the relation between electricity and matter." He gives 

 also an interesting sketch of the curious and difficult 

 situation into which the knowledge has led us. 

 Finally, Wilberforce writes of the development of the 

 teaching of physics with a keen sense, both of the 

 difficulties of the art and of their compensating 

 humour. 



Taking the book as a whole it is, in the first place, 

 a very charming testimony to the regard which the 

 I workers in the Cavendish entertain for Sir Joseph 

 i Thomson. He must be a happy man to note the 

 generous and affectionate appreciation so widely 

 evident in the book. In the second place, it will be 

 of perpetual interest to students of phj'sics as a record 

 of the inner life of the Cavendish during a strenuous 

 and prolific period. It is still more. It is practically 

 the history of the development of laboratory teaching 

 and organised research in England, so far as physical 

 science is concerned. In many ways it is reassuring. 



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