September i8, 19 19] 



NATURE 



57 



a body sitting there is to decide the subjects of 

 research and to allocate the grants. There may be 

 a good deal to be said for that in the case of funds 

 obtained in London. But apparently already existing 

 local incentives to research work are to be trans- 

 ferred to London. The Carnegie Trust for the Uni- 

 Ncrsities of Scotland, soon after its work began, 

 inaugurated a scheme for research work in connec- 

 tion with these universities. The beneficiaries of the 

 Trust, it is well known, must be students of Scottish 

 nationality. The action of the Trust has been most 

 excellent, and much good work has been done. Now, 

 so far as chemistry and physics are concerned, it 

 has been proposed, if not decided, to hand over to 

 the organisation in London the making of the awards, 

 a process of centralisation that will probably not end 

 wilh these subjects. I venture to protest against any 

 such proceeding. The more incentives and endow- 

 ments of research that exist and are administered in 

 the provinces the better. Moreover, this is a bene- 

 faction to Scottish students which ought not to be 

 withdrawn and merged in any provision made for the 

 whole country, and administered in London by a 

 bureau which may know little of the Scottish uni- 

 versities or of Scottish students. The bureau might, 

 with equal justice or injustice, be given command of 

 the special research scholarships of all the universities 

 both in England and Scotland, and administer them 

 in the name of the fetish of unification of effort. I 

 do not know, but can imagine, what Oxford and 

 ( ambridge and Manchester and Liverpool would say 

 to that. But even Scotland, where of course we know 

 little or nothing about education of any kind, may 

 also have something to say before this ultra-centralisa- 

 tion becomes an accomplished fact. 



There is, it seems to me, another danger to be 

 avoided besides that of undue centralisation in 

 London. In most of the statements I have seen 

 regarding the promotion of research work, the 

 emphasis seems to be on industrial research — that is, 

 in applied science. This kind of research includes the 

 investigation of physical and chemical products of 

 v.irious kinds which may be used in arts and manu- 

 factures, and its deliberate organised promotion ought 

 to be a commercial affair. I observed, by the way, 

 with some amusement, that according to the pro- 

 posals of one committee for applied science, which 

 is prepared to give grants and premiums for researches 

 and results, the professor or head of a department, 

 from whom will generally come what are most im- 

 portant, the ideas, is to have no payment. He is 

 supposed to be so well paid by the institution he 

 belongs to as to require no remuneration for his super- 

 vision of the committee's researches. And the results 

 are to be the sole propertv of the committee ! 



There is in this delightfullv calm proposal at least 

 a suggestion of compulsion and of interference with 

 institutions and their staffs which ought to be well 

 < xamined. -Mso some light is thrown on the ideas 

 of such people as managing directors of limited 

 liabilitv companies, who are members of such a com- 

 mittee, as to what might reasonably be expected of 

 iiK^n of high attainments and skill whose emoluments 

 ' iken all round are, on the whole, miserably in- 



ifficient. 

 T think that it is in danger of being forgotten that, 



lier all. pure science is by far the most important 



ling. Most of the great applications of science have 

 been the products of discoveries which were made 

 without anv notion of such an outcome. Witness the 

 tremendous series of results in electricity of which 

 the beginning was Faradav's and Henry's researches 

 on induction of currents, and the conclusion was the 

 work of Hertz on electric waves. From the first 

 came the production and transmission of power bv 

 NO. 2603, VOL. 104] 



electriciliy ; from the last the world has received the 

 gift of wireless telegraphy. I am not at all sure 

 whether the great men who worked in the sixty or 

 seventy years which I have indicated would have 

 always received grants for proposed researches, which 

 to many of the good business directors and other super- 

 men serving on a great bureau of investigation, had 

 such then existed, would have appeared fantastic and 

 visionary. In research, in pure science at least, con- 

 trol will inevitably defeat itself. The scientific dis- 

 coverer scarcely knows whither he is being led; by 

 a path he knows not he comes to his own. He should 

 be free as the wind But I must not be misunder- 

 stood. Most certainly it is right to encourage re- 

 search in applied science by all available and legiti- 

 mate means. But beware of attempting to control 

 or "capture" the laboratories of pure science in the 

 universities and colleges of the country. Let there 

 Oe also ample provision for the pursuit of science for 

 its own sake; the return will, in the future as in the 

 past, surpass all expectation. 



I had intended to say something about scientific 

 education as exemplified by the teaching of physics. 

 I have left myself little time or space for this. I 

 cannot quite pass the matter over, but I shall com- 

 press my remarks. In the first place, I regard 

 dvnamics, especially rotational dynamics, as the 

 foundation of all physics, and it is axiomatic that the 

 foundation of a great structure should be soundly and 

 solidly laid. The implications of dynamics are at 

 present undergomg a very strict and searching 

 examination, and now we may say that a step in 

 advance has been taken from the Newtonian point of 

 view, and that a new and important development of 

 dynamics has come into being. I refer, of course, to 

 the new theories of relativity which are now attracting 

 so much attention. I hope to learn from the dis- 

 cussions, which we may possibly have, something of 

 the latest ideas on this very fundamental subject of 

 research. It is a matter for congratulation that so 

 manv excellent accounts of relativity are now avail- 

 able in English. Some earlier discussions are so very 

 general in their mathematical treatment and notation 

 as to be exceedingly difficult to master completely. I 

 have attacked Minkowski's paper more than once, 

 but have felt repelled, not by the difficulties of his 

 analysis, but by 'that of marshalling and keeping 

 track of all his results. Einstein's papers I have not 

 vet been able to obtain. Hence it is a source of 

 gratification to have Prof. Eddington's interesting 

 report to the Physical Society and the other excellent 

 treatises which we have in English. But continual 

 thought and envisaging of the subject is still required 

 to give anything approaching to instinctive apprecia- 

 tion such as we have in ordinary Newtonian dynamics. 

 I venture to say that the subject is pre-eminently one 

 for physicists and physical mathematicians. In some 

 ways the new ideas bring us back to Newton's point 

 of view as regards so-called absolute rotation — a sub- 

 ject on which I have never thought that discussions 

 of the foundations of dynamics had said absolutely 

 the last word. I, for one, still cling to the aether, 

 and am strongly of opinion that the whole subject of 

 .ether and matter and electrons require much more 

 complete physical treatment than it has vet received 

 from relativists. 



The better the student of nhvsics is grounded in the 

 older dynamics, and especially in the dynamics of 

 rotation, the sooner will he be able to place himself 

 at the new point of view, and the sooner will his 

 wav of looking at things begin to become instructive. 



With regard to the study of physics in our universi- 

 ties and colleges, I had written a good deal. I have 

 put that aside for the pr.'sent, and will content mvself 

 with only a fe\V general observations. First, then. 



