A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



*^To the solid ground 



Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye." — Wordsworth. 



THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1920. 



Knowledge and Understanding. 



Science and Life: Aberdeen Addresses. By Prof. 

 Frederick Soddy. Pp. xii + 229. (London : 

 John Murray, 1920.) Price io5. 6d. net. 



Hear, Land of Cakes and brither Scots, 

 Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's ; 

 If there's a hole in a' your coats, 



I rede ye tent it; 

 A chiel's amang ye takin' notes, . 

 And, faith, he'll prent it. 



PROF. SODDY, who has recendy removed 

 from the chair of chemistry in the University 

 of Aberdeen to the newly created Lee's professor- 

 ship of inorganic and physical chemistry in the 

 University of Oxford, is well known throughout 

 the scientific world by reason of his work in con- 

 nection with the subject of radio-activity, to which 

 he has made very important contributions. But 

 it was not suspected, at least generally, that from 

 his northern post of observation he was finding 

 so many holes in the coats of the inhabitants of 

 that part especially, and of the institutions of the 

 country generally, and that he would "prent it." 

 Yet here is a volume which bears as sub-title 

 "Aberdeen Addresses," the delivery of which 

 must have caused many of his "unco' guid " 

 neighbours to sit up and perhaps furieusement h 

 penser. But, as the old clerk in "Silas Marner " 

 said: "Where's the use o' talking? You can't 

 think what goes on in a cute man's inside." 



We must all agree with the author in the view 

 that "the times seem to call for outspokenness, 

 if one has anything to say, rather than persuasive 

 propagandism and time-serving compromise. Jt 

 may be recalled that scientific men have, f6r 

 nearly a century, pointed out the,<iangers to the 

 nation of the traditional school and university 

 training, disastrous especially in that it embracies 

 NO. 2627, VOL. 105] 



even those who are to be its ruler s^kntl states- 

 men." So Prof. Soddy has spoken out with a 

 voice which is bound to be heard even by those 

 who, having no ears to hear, or understi^nding to 

 learn, cannot help catching the echoes of this new 

 trumpet-call. .^ . ^;.,i,Mj ,; 



The essays may be broadly divided li^i^pislrwo 

 groups, of which one contains an exposition of 

 the marvellous disclosures concerning the physical 

 constitution of matter which have absorbed the 

 concentrated attention of so many physicists 

 during the last twenty years, while the second 

 group, addressed to various audiences^ shows 

 the bearing of modern scientific discovery on the 

 philosophies hitherto prevalent. _ '« ' •. 



Let us glance first at the former set of essays. 

 For nearly a century the atomic theory of Newton 

 and Dalton had been accepted by chemists as the 

 almost undisputed basis of their theoretical con- 

 ceptions, and for all ordinary chemical pheno- 

 mena the atom is still the fundamental unit of 

 mass. Views as to the nature of the atom and its 

 constitution now assume a different form. It is 

 as though an observer, looking along a street, 

 having formerly supposed each house to consist of 

 a solid mass of bricks, now finds out that each 

 contains many chambers and inhabitants capaWe 

 of moving about. This knowledge has been 

 obtained in two ways. By bombardment the coti- 

 stituent materials and inhabitants have been dis- 

 tributed in various directions, and in a strange, 

 unaccountable way the inhabitants , of certain 

 houses escape from them carrying a^Way portiofis 

 of the fabric, which is thus gradually led to tumble 

 down. The metaphor can be carried no farther, 

 but is sufficient to remind the reader of the con- 

 ceiptions gradually introduced as the r^ult of 

 ' experimental wprk carried on first by Crookes, 

 and later especially by Sir Joseph Thomson 

 andj on the other hand, by the discoveries of 



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