632 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. 



LECTURES TO WOMEN ON PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



July 1874. 



ii. 



Professor Chrschtschonovitsch, Ph.D., " On the C. Cf. S. 1 

 system of Units." 



Remarks submitted to the Lecturer ly a student. 



PRIM Doctor of Philosophy 



From academic Heidelberg ! 

 Your sum of vital energy 



Is not the millionth of an erg. 2 

 Your liveliest motion might be reckoned 

 At one-tenth metre 3 in a second. 



" The air," you said, in language fine, 



Which scientific thought expresses, 

 " The air which with a megadyne, 4 



On each square centimetre presses 

 The air, and I may add the ocean, 

 Are nought but molecules in motion." 



Atoms, you told me, were discrete, 

 Than you they could not be discreter, 



Who know how many Millions meet 

 Within a cubic millimetre. 



They clash together as they fly, 



But you ! you cannot tell me why. 



1 C. G. S. system the system of units founded on the centimetre, 

 gramme, and second. See report of Committee on units. Brit. Ass. 

 Report for 1873, p. 222. 



Erg the energy communicated by a dyne, acting through a 

 centimetre. See p. 60, note 2. 3 Tenth-metre = 1 metre x lO" 10 . 



4 Megadyne = 1 dyne x 10 6 . It is somewhat more than the weight 

 of a kilogramme. 



