46 



NATURE 



[November 8, 1900 



might lead us through the like tribulation. The tribulation 

 is least because it is suffered only once if we first learn the 

 calculus method which underlies all our work ; it is greatest if 

 we get it up in a completely new-looking form in every new 

 problem. I speak now of what is most difficult in our study, for 

 there is thought required in applying the calculus method. 

 Thus, for example, in multiphase work at the present time the 

 best mathematicians wonder how it is possible for easy calcula- 

 tion to be made in such a subject. What we want just now is 

 that an electrical engineer acquainted with three-phase current 

 phenomena should be so much a master of ordinary ea.«y mathe- 

 matics that he has a chance of discovering a very simple way Oi 

 putting the matter before us. At present calculation is easy but 

 tedious, and, indeed, repellent ; but I am perfectly certain that 

 a competent man might quickly invent methods of calculation 

 which are not only easy but short and thinkable. Malhema- 

 tic ians with the requisite electrical knowledge, again, may be 

 lacking in sympathy and humour. I know a book of more than 

 three hundred large pages on ordinary alternating currents, and 

 all the information in it is given far more simply in two pages of 

 another book with which some of you are acquainted. Possibly, 

 just now, mathematicians who are electrical and who have 

 coTimon sense have too much other work to do, and we must 

 wait their leisure. 



The fact is, mathematics ought to be the natural language of 

 the electrical engineer, and at present it is a foreign language ; 

 we cannot read or write or think in it. We are at the beginning 

 of our development, like monkeys whose necessities have 

 increased faster than their powers of speech. 



Some of you are aware that a new method of teaching 

 mathematics has recently been introduced in nearly all evening 

 classes in science schools throughout the country. ^ I wish I 

 could say that there was a prospect of its being introduced in all 

 schools, for it seems to me that this would lead to the result 

 that all young men entering works would be masters of that kind 

 of calculation which is most important in electrical engineering; 

 not merely a few men having this power, but the average men, 

 just as average men can read and write. 



I am addressing engineers, men who utilise the results arrived 

 at by scientific workers, men whose profession is applied science. 

 But surely if we are to apply the results arrived at by scientific 

 men, if the laboratory experiment of to-day is the engineering 

 achievement of to-morrow, we ought to be very much alive to 

 all that is going on in the scientific world. 



All men ought to be far more alive to the importance of 

 scientific work. On the psychological side, it is perfectly ex- 

 asperating to me to see how few are the men who know that 

 Darwin has given a key to almost all the great philosophical 

 problems of antiquity, and that there is a great mental develop- 

 ment accompanying the more evident engineeiing development 

 now going on in the world. Again, it is the fault of our methods 

 of education that all our great men, our most important, most 

 brilliant, best educated men ; our poets and novelists, our legis- 

 lators and lawyers, our soldiers and sailors, our great manufac- 

 turers and merchants, our clergymen and schoolmasters, should 

 remain so ignorant of physical science, the application of which 

 by a few men not ignorant is transforming all the conditions of 

 civilisation.^ But, of all men, just think what it means for 

 engineers to be ignorant of science, or neglectful of its new de- 

 velopments ; and, of all engineers, think what it would mean if 

 electrical engineers sinned in this way. 



Except ours, all other branches of industry have taken thou- 

 sands of years to grow. There were bridge and hydraulic and 

 sanitary and harbour and river engineers in ancient Rome, and 

 such engineers existed thousands of years before the first papyrus 

 was written in Egypt. But no Assyrian tile or Egyptian hiero- 

 glyphic or relic from a tomb indicates that telephones or 

 electrical motors or electric lights existed before our time. No 

 gradual improvement in our methods of conquering nature 

 led up from small beginnings in our electrical engineering. 

 Our profession has not grown during thousands of years 

 of time, like other professions. It has sprung suddenly, 

 full grown, from the new spirit which is going to rule 

 the souls and bodies of men, the spirit of research in pure 



1 See summary of Lectures on Practical Mathematics ; also the Science 

 and Art Directory, and the Reports of Examineis on the Science Examin- 

 ations of 1899 and 1900, all published by the Education Department, South 

 Kensington, S.W. The reforms now advocated in mathematical and 

 science teaching are all clearly described in a paper read before the Society 

 of Arts in January, 1880. 



2 See articles in Nature of July 5 and August 2 



NO. 1619, VOL. 



63] 



science. The new spirit puts knowledge, mere knowledge of 

 nature, as its highest aim.' The scientific student knows 

 that all sorts of good must come to mankind from his 

 studies ; all sorts of scientific knowledge are sure 

 to be utilised by engineers, but in the pursuit of science 

 the usefulness and utility of the results are of no 

 importance. And are we — we who have received the 

 first-fruits of the labours of scientific men, we the first-born 

 spoilt children of the great parent of all that is to come, we 

 who form "the foremost files of the present time — are we going 

 to turn upon our beautiful young mother and say she is useless 

 and ugly, and she hinders our money-making, and that we are 

 willing to kill her for the sake of the burial fee ? Thank God 

 that is the spirit of only a few of us. Have we not as an 

 Institution gone to great expense in the publication of Science 

 Abstracts in partnership with the Physical Society ? That 

 publication has been and continues to be of the very greatest 

 value to all students of pure and applied science who read our 

 language, for it tells them the results of all the scientific work 

 now being done in all parts of the world. And even if some 

 of us do not read that useful publication, do we not know that 

 it is there to read if we like ? Do we not know that it is a 

 symbol of our redemption from the yoke of the Philistine ? It 

 is one of many signs that in answer to the question which I 

 have asked in this address, we can truthfully say that we are 

 professional men, that our profession has promise of enormous 

 expansion and improvement, and that we are not mere trades- 

 men. 



I am afraid that you will think that I have a personal interest 

 in putting before you the claims for consideration of the pursuit 

 of pure science, because you know that I am trying to defend 

 Kew Observatory from imminent danger. In truth I have no 

 interest in this matter unbecoming a president of this Institution. 

 For two years I have been trying to reason with traction en- 

 gineers. Like many other electrical engineers these gentlemen 

 desire to use uninsulated return conductors. If they do so near 

 a magnetic observatory certain records, of terrestrial magnetic 

 disturbances are quite spoilt. At Potsdam this sacrilege has been 

 forbidden. At Washington, Toronto, Capetown, and most other 

 important places, the magnetic records have already been rendered 

 useless. Professor Rucker and I were asked by the other mem- 

 bers of the Committee of the Royal Society which was in charge 

 of the Kew Observatory to defend Kew, and with the help of 

 her Majesty's Treasury we thought we were able to insist upon 

 the use of insulated returns in all undertakings authorised 

 by Parliament where harm was likely to be inflicted on Govern- 

 ment observatories. I may say that the scheme designed by 

 Mr. Clifton Robinson for using an insulated return conductor in 

 the working of the tramways of the London United Tramways 

 Company, in consequence of our action, was a thoroughly good 

 scheme which it gave one satisfaction to look at, not ugly and 

 not expensive. It seemed to me a fit scheme for any tramway 

 system, however complex, in which overhead conductors are 

 used. You are aware that for an electric railway or for a tram- 

 way where a conduit is employed, it is in every way better, and 

 is in a large scheme actually cheaper, to use an insulated return. 

 We fell therefore very happy, for magnetic observatories seemed 

 quite safe from interference. We were, however, mistaken, for 

 the only clause which we have been able to get inserted in all 

 Parliamentary authorisations of undertakings leaves it to the 

 Board of Trade to substitute other methods of protection than 

 the insulation of the return conductors in cases where these other 

 methods seem to be sufficiently good for the protection of 

 laboratories and observatories, and this is why the Board of 

 Trade appointed the Committee which met on October 31 pro- 

 bably for the last time. 



Prof. Rucker, Prof. Ayrton, and I have made many tests on 

 the magnetic disturbances produced by tramways and rail- 

 ways, particularly by the Stockton tramways and by the 

 Waterloo and City Railway, and we have had many meetings 

 with the traction engineers, but nothing has yet been decided. 



I mention this matter, which has given great anxiety to 

 scientific men, because I am afraid that some of you may 

 think when you hear of it that I have l^een acting against 

 the interests of the electrical industry. I beg to assure you 

 that I have been acting in your best interests. As an 

 electrical engineer I ought surely to regret the use of un- 

 insulated returns, even if we leave Kew Observatory out 

 of account. Suppose we do not now insulate our returns. 

 Electricity will certainly return by gas and water pipes, and 



