362 



NATURE 



[June 29, 19 16 



them), granted for promise shown in scientific research 

 to students whose work is considered likely to be of 

 benefit to the nation and national industries. The 

 men who have held these scholarships for two or three 

 years form a body highly trained in the best English 

 and Continental universities, with, in most cases, con- 

 siderable research experience under varied conditions 

 and breadth of view. Yet we see on all hands these 

 men barely able to make a living (unless they go to 

 America). They are in general men of all-round 

 education, with sf)ecialised knowledge in science in 

 addition; they are not particularly uncouth, unprac- 

 tical, or unbalanced, as popular tradition would have 

 men of science to be. It is this addition of specialised 

 knowledge that, under present conditions, is the 

 greatest obstacle to their earning a living ; they would 

 probably be better paid if they turned their hand to 

 any employment other than the pursuit of science, or 

 became the worst paid of Government clerks. 



In case I should be supposed to be taking a sordid 

 view and claiming riches for the man of science, 1 

 explain that when I write "earning a living " I mean 

 earning just sufficient to enable a single man to live 

 in the most modest way befitting a member of a 

 learned profession, and I state without fear of con- 

 tradiction that to do so was a matter of grave diffi- 

 culty .'for our younger men of science before the war. 



There is nothing unique about the treatment of the 

 185 1 .'Exhibition scholars. Taking scientific research 

 workers in general, the State has nothing to offer 

 them except occasional grants of 5^. or 10/. towards 

 purchasing apparatus ; . the modern universities offer 

 them' (and the offer is widely ; accepted) 150/." or so a 

 year (see the advertisement columns of Nature) for 

 lecturing on the higher and lower branches of their 

 science, and for spending all their spare time in re- 

 search ; private enterprise treats them as amiable 

 eccentrics on a par with the pleasant gentlemen who 

 devise in our popular papers and magazines problems 

 dealing with the joint ages of old families, and the 

 division of ridiculouslv shaped fields into absurd areas. 

 Only their love of -science keeps them employed on 

 scientific work, and you are not likely to extend the 

 class of men willing to accept scholarships under such 

 conditions and with such prospects, however many 

 scholarships you may offer. 



So long as the present attitude towards science and 

 scientific workers obtains it is useless to train fresh 

 men, and by means of scholarships to set keen workers 

 on a path which leads them through the pleasant fields 

 of scientific discovery to the pathless waste of apathy 

 and neglect which lies in the way of all workers in 

 pure science in England, a waste where material life 

 is very scarcely nourished. . Once the waste is 

 abolished the path need not be made so smooth. . To 

 drop the obscurity of metaphor, once show the young 

 and keen student that he has some hopes of employ- 

 ment for his activities and recognition for his work, 

 that there is some place for him, in national life when 

 he is accomplished as a research worker, and he will 

 derive more encouragement from: the prospect of some 

 future definite goal than from 'all the help by the 

 way to nowhere offered by scholarships, exhibitions, 

 and such like. These are of little use until there is 

 good prospect of the attitude of the governing classes 

 towards science being changed, and, in my humble 

 opinion, all energies should be devoted to bringing 

 about' this change of opinion. It is conceivable that 

 a refusal by our great men of science to do national 

 work for nothing but scant and grudging thanks 

 would do more to increase the national reputation of 

 science than any sort of begging for scholarships. 

 It would mark a new era, when the man of science 

 will be held worthy of his hire, and not as one rather 

 permitted to exist than encouraged ; and who will be 

 NO. 2435, VOL. 97] 



found to say that such a new era would be a bad 

 thing? 



One further point. All present discussion seems to 

 be concerned only with the direct application of science 

 to industry, and not at all with the advisability of 

 encouraging pure science. Many of us would "wel- 

 come a definite pronouncement from' the leading 

 authorities as to their attitude towards pure science. 

 If only science which can be immediately applied to 

 industrial processes is in future to be considered of 

 national value, let us have a clear announcement to 

 this effect from some responsible body. This will give 

 those of us who have spent their youth working in 

 pure science, and who are now on active service, a 

 fair opportunity to set about cultivating the correct 

 attitude of mind towards science before returning to 

 peace-time pursuits. For an attitude of mind is one 

 of the few things easily cultivated within range of 

 German guns. E. N. da C. Andrade. 



B.E.F., France, June 21. 



On the "Wolf-note" of the Violin and 'Cello. 



It has long been known that on all musical instru- 

 ments of the violin family there is a particular note 

 which is difficult to excite in a satisfactory manner, 

 and that when this " wolf-note," as it is called, is 

 sounded, the whole body of the instrument vibrates in 

 an unusual degree, and it seems to have been also 

 understood that the difficulty of eliciting a smooth 

 note of this particular pitch is due in some way to the 

 sympathetic resonance of the instrument (Guillemin, 

 "The Applications of Physical Forces," 1877). In a 

 recent paper (Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc, June, 1915)- 

 G. W. White has published some experimental 

 work confirming this view. The most striking 

 effect noticed is the cyclical variation in the in- 

 tensity of the tone obtained when the instrument is 

 forced to speak at this point. White suggests as an 

 explanation of these fluctuations of intensity that they 

 are due to the beats which accompany the forced vibra- 

 tion imposed on the resonator. The correctness of this 

 suggestion seems open to serious criticism. For the 

 beats which are produced when a periodic force acts 

 on a vibrator are essentially transitory in character, 

 whereas in the present case the fluctuations in intensity 

 are persistent. 



The following explanation of the effect, which is 

 different from that .suggested by White, occurred to 

 me some time ago on theoretical grounds, and has 

 since been confirmed by me experimentally. The effect 

 depends on the fact (which is itself a consequence 

 of theory) that when the pressure with which the bow 

 is applied is less than a certain critical value propor- 

 tionate to the rate of dissipation of energy from the 

 string, the principal mode of vibration of the latter, in 

 which the fundamental is dominant, is incapable of 

 being maintained and passes over into one in which 

 the octave is prominent. When the bow sets the 

 string in vibration the instrument is strongly excited 

 by sympathetic resonance, and the rate of dissipation 

 of energy rapidly increases and continues to increase 

 beyond the limit up to which the bow can maintain 

 the string in the normal mode of vibration. The form of 

 vibration of the string then alters into one in which the 

 fundamental is feeble compared with the octave. 

 Following this, the amplitude of vibration of the belly 

 decreases, but this change lags behind that of the 

 string to a considerable extent. When the rate of 

 dissipation of energy again falls below the critical 

 limit, the string begins to regain its original form 

 of vibration with the dominant fundamental. This is 

 accordingly followed, after an Interval, by a fresh 

 increase in the vibration of the belly, and the cycle 

 then repeats itself Indefinitely. 



