47 



NA TURE 



[September 12, 1895 



-might ad\'anUigeously retain its connection nith the Roj'al 

 Society, under a Committee of Management representative of 

 the N-arious branches of science concerned, and of all [xirts of 

 Oreat Britain. 



Conclusion. 



The \-arious agencies for scientific education have produced 

 numerous students admirably qualified to pursue research : and 

 at the same time almost every field of industr)- presents oiwnings 

 for improvement through the development of scientific methods. 

 For instance, agricultural 0|)erations alone offer openings for re- 

 search to the biologist, the chemist, the physicist, the geologist, 

 the engineer, which have hitherto been largely overlooked. If 

 students do not easily find cmplojTiient, it is chiefly attributable 

 to a want of appreciation for science in the nation at large. 



This want of appreciation appears to arise from the fact that 

 those who nearly half a centur)' ago directed the movement of 

 national education were trained in early life in the universities, 

 in which the value of scientific methods was not at that time 

 fully recognised. Hence our elemcntar)', and even our secondary- 

 and great public schools, neglected for a long time to encourage 

 the spirit of investigation which develops originality. This defect 

 is diminishing daily. 



There is, however, a more intangible cause which may have 

 had influence on the want of appreciation of science by the nation. 

 The Ciovemment, which largely profits by science, aids it with 

 money, but it has done ver)- little to develop the national ap- 

 preciation for science by recognising that its leaders are worthy 

 of honours conferred by the State. Science is not fashionable, 

 and science students — upon whose efforts our progress as a nation 

 so largely depends — have not receive<l the same measure of 

 recognition which the State awards to ser\nces rendered by its 

 own officials, by politicians, and by the .\rmy and by the Na\')', 

 whf)se success in future wars w ill largely depend on the effective 

 applications of science. 



The Reports of the British .\ssociation afford a complete 

 chronicle of the gradual growth of scientific knowledge since 

 1831. They .show that the .\ssociation has fulfilled the objects 

 of its founders in promoting and disseminating a knowledge of 

 science throughout the nation. 



The growing connection between the sciences places our annual 

 meeting in the position of an arena where representatives of the 

 different sciences have the opportunity of criticising new dis- 

 coveries and testing the value of fresh proposals, and the 

 Presidential and Sectional Addresses oj^erate as an annual stock- 

 taking of progress in the several branches of science represented 

 in the Sections. Every year the field of usefulness of the 

 Association is widening. Kfir, whether with the geologist we 

 seek to write the history of the crust of the earth, or with the 

 biologist to trace out the evolution of its inhabitants, or whether 

 with the astronomer, the chemist, and the physicist we endeavour 

 to unravel the constitution of the sun and the planets or the 

 genesis of the nebulrc and stars which make up the universe, 

 on every side we find ourselves surrounded by mysteries which 

 await solution. We are only at the beginning of work. 



I have, therefore, full confidence that the future records of the 

 British .Vssfjciation will chronicle a still greater progress than 

 that already achieved, and that the British nation will maintain 

 its leading position amongst the nations of the world, if it will 

 energetically continue its vt.luntary efforts to promote research, 

 supplemented by that additional help from the Government which 

 ought never to Ik- withheld when a clear ca-se of .scientific utility 

 has lieen established. 



SECTION A. 



MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS. 



OrEMXG AnnREss by Prof. W. M. Hicks, M.A., D.Sc, 



F.R.S., pRESiriENT OF THE SECTION. 



In making a choice of .subject for my address the difficulty is 

 not one of finding niatcrt.il but of making .selection. The field 

 covered by this .Section is a wide one. Investigation is active 

 in every |>art iif it, and is Iwing rewarded with a continuous 

 5tream of new discoveries an<I with the growth of that coordina- 

 tion and corrcl.Tiinn of facts which is the surest sign of real 

 advancement in sricncc. The ultimate aim of pure science is to 

 lie able lo explain the most complicated [(henomena of nature as 

 flowinc by the fewest ]x>ssilile laws from the simplest funda- 

 mental data. A stalemenl <if a law is cither a confession of 

 ignorance or a mncm'inic convenience. It is the hitter, if it is 



NO. 1350, VOL. 52] 



deducible by logical reasoning from other laws. It is the former 

 when it is only discovered as a fact to be a law. While, on the 

 one hand, the end of scientific investigation is the discover)' of 

 laws, on the other, science w ill have reached its highest goal 

 when it shall have reduced ultimate laws to one or two, the 

 necessity of which lies outside the sphere of our cognition. 

 These ultimate laws — in the domain of physical science at least 

 — will be the dynamical laws of the relations of matter to 

 number, s]i.ace, and time. The ultimate data will lie number, 

 matter, si»ce, and time themselves. When these relations shall 

 be known, all physical phenomena will be a branch of pure 

 mathematics. We shall have done away with the necessity of 

 the conception of potential energy, even if it may still be con- 

 venient to retain it ; and — if it should be found that all pheno- 

 mena are manifestations of motion of one single continuous 

 medium — the idea of force w ill be banished also, and the study 

 of dynamics replaced by the study of the equation of continuity. 

 Before, however, this can be attained, we must have the 

 working drawings of the details of the mechanism we have to 

 tieal with. These details lie outside the scope of our bodily 

 senses : we cannot see, or feel, or hear them, and this, not be- 

 cause they are unseeable, but because our senses are too coarse- 

 grained to transmit impressions of them to our mind. The or- 

 dinary methods of investigation here fail us ; we must jiroceed 

 by a special method, and make a bridge of communication be- 

 tween the mechanism and our senses by means of hypotheses. 

 By our imagination, exijerience, intuition we form theories ; we 

 deduce the consequences of these theories on phenomena which 

 come within the range of our senses, and reject or modify and 

 try again. It is a slow and laborious process. The wreckage of 

 rejected theories is appalling ; but a knowledge of what .actually 

 goes on behind what we can see or feel is surely if slowly being 

 attained. It is the rejected theories which have been the neces- 

 sary steps towards formulating others nearer the truth. It would 

 be an extremely interesting study to consider the history of these 

 di.scarded theories ; to show the part they have taken in the 

 evolution of truer conceptions, and to trace the persistence and 

 modification of typical ideas from one stratum of theories to a 

 later. I propose, however, to ask your attention for a short 

 time to one of these s|3ecial theories — or rather to two related 

 theories — on the constitution of matter .ind of the ether. They 

 are known as the vortex atom theory of matter, and the vortex 

 s|Kinge theory of the ether. The former has been before the 

 scientific world for a quarter of a century, since its first sugges- 

 tion by Lord Kelvin in 1S67, the .second for about half that time. 

 In what 1 have to say I wish to take the jiosilion not of an advo- 

 c.ite for or against, but simply as a prospector attenqning to 

 estimate what return is likely to be obtained by laying down 

 plant to develop an unknown district. This is, in fact, the state 

 of these two theories at present. Extremely little progress has 

 been made in their mathematical development, and until this h,as 

 been done more completely we cannot test tliem as to their 

 powers of adequately explaining physical phenomena. 



The theory of (he rigid atom has been a very fruitful one, 

 e.s])ecially in explaining the projxTlies of matter in the gaseous 

 state ; but it gives no explanation of the apparent forces which 

 hold atoms together, and in many other rcsjK."Cts it requires sup- 

 plementing. The ela.stic solid ether explamed much, but there 

 are dilhculties connected with it — especially in connection with 

 reflection anil refraction — which decide against it. The mathe- 

 matical rotational ether of M.icCull.agh is admirably adapted to 

 meet these difficulties, but he could give no physical conception 

 of its mechanism. Maxwell and Earaday proposed a special 

 ether for electrical and magnetic actions. Maxwell's identifica- 

 tion of the latter with the luminiferous ether, his deduction of the 

 velocity of prop.igation of light and of indices of refraction in 

 terms of known electrical and magnetic constants, will fiinn one 

 of the landmarks in the hislciry of science. This ellier requires 

 the same mathematical treatment as that of MacCullagh. Lord 

 Kelvin's gyrostalic mudel of an ether is also of the ^lacCulla(Jh 

 lyix;. L.astly, we h.avc Lord Kelvin's labile ether, which agam 

 avoids the objectiims to the el.-ustic solid ether. In MacL'ullagh's 

 type of ether the energ)' of the medium when disturbed depends 

 only on the twists produced in it. This ether has recently been 

 mathematically discussed by Dr. Larm<ir, who has shown that it 

 is adequate t<i explain all the various |)lienoniena of light, elec- 

 tricity, and magnetism. To this I hope 111 return later. Mean- 

 while, it may be borne in mind that the vortex sponge ether 

 belongs lo MacCullagh's type. 



Already liefore a formal theory of a fluid ether had been 



