128 



NA TURE 



[June i i, 1908 



SOUK SCIENTIFIC CENTRES. 



No. XIII.— The Mechanics Labor.uory of the 



Imperi,\l College of Scienxe and Technology. 



THIS description of the mechanics laboratory of the 

 Imperial College of Science and Technology 

 may not improbably appear to some readers as pre- 

 mature, in consideration of the fact that the college 

 was so recently founded and the new rector, Dr. 

 Bovey, appointed only within the last few months. 

 It was as the mechanics laboratory of the Royal 

 College of Science that until lately it was known, 

 and under that name it achieved the great suc- 

 cess that time and Prof. Perry brought to it. 

 What that laboratory has been for the past ten or 

 more years to engineering students in London will 

 not readily be forgotten by Prof. Perry's old students, 

 and a piece of creative work of this kind is too valu- 

 able to be lost. It is therefore a matter for con- 

 gratulation that the laboratory has 

 found a place in the new Imperial 

 College, and in doing so it has, wc 

 hope, taken a new lease of life and 

 usefulness. 



The new Imperial College will 

 assume also the control of certain 

 engineering laboratories, but it 

 must be remembered that the study 

 of mechanics is not the same thing 

 as the study of engineering. Not 

 all who attend a mechanics course 

 become engineers, though, while 

 they are pursuing that study, the 

 more they conform to the en- 

 gineer's mental attitude, the better 

 will they understand what they are 

 doing, and the more effective use 

 will they make of the time spent 

 on this subject. 



Engineering laboratories are now 

 so numerous that they must be 

 familiar to all who are interested 

 in scientific work. As a type, prob- 

 ably the best example is to be found 

 in the University of Cambridge. 

 In that laboratory, for instance, 

 there are steam engines, dynamos, 

 motors, gas engines, boilers, oil 

 engines, storage cells, indicating in- 

 struments, and all the hundred-and- 

 one accessories. The atmosphere 

 is far more nearly that of the power- 

 station or the test-bench of a works 

 than that of the college class- 

 room. To complete an engineering course it is 

 necessary to spend some time in these surroundings 

 at Cambridge or elsewhere, but unless the student 

 has some preliminary training in mechanics the soil 

 will be but ill prepared for the seed. 



When in 1896 Prof. Perry was appointed to the 

 chair of mechanics and mathematics in the old Roj'al 

 College of Science, he set himself to organise and 

 equip a laboratory for the study of mechanics. It 

 was p.xtraordinary how the course could have pros- 

 pered before without something of the kind, and the 

 new departure meant a good deal of hard work in 

 getting it carried out. In spite of all difficulties, 

 however, the scheme was successfully carried through, 

 and visitors to the college have for some years been 

 able to see what is the model mechanics laboratory 

 of this country. Prof. Perry himself states that his 

 l.-iboratory methods of teaching are based on those 

 introduced by Prof. Ball (now Sir Robert Ball, of 

 Cambridge University) when at the Royal College 



NO. 2015, VOL. 78] 



of Science in Dublin, and were gradually developed 

 by him at Clifton College between the years 1S70 and 

 1874. A further opportunity of development occurred 

 during his tenure of an engineering chair in Japan 

 from 1875 to 1879, with the consequence that by the 

 year 1S80 they blossomed out into a matured scheme 

 of teaching at the Finsbury Technical College. It is 

 a remarkable fact that almost all the technical insti- 

 tutes in this country now have, or are in process of 

 forming, mechanics laboratories which, like the one 

 which forms the subject of this article, are based 

 upon the model of " Finsbury." The idea at the 

 basis of this teaching is that students should test for 

 themselves the truth of the theories they learn, and 

 not get into the frame of mind which looks on all 

 theories as equallv true because all are put forward 

 with a generally similar show of authority. 



To take a simple instance of this, the problem pre- 

 sented by the phenomenon of friction may be cited- 



Prof. Perry in his laboratory at the Imperial College ot Science and Technology. 



In the days before engineering had become a scientific 

 study, the phenomenon of friction was part of the 

 domain of the mathematical physicists, who, being 

 chiefly desirous of finding quickly relations between 

 different variables which would enable the data to 

 bo put into the mathematical mill to the end that 

 results might be ground out, did not scrutinise with 

 nearly sufficient care the results of their experiments. 

 This was not altogether their own fault, as the ap- 

 paratus used was rarely well designed to give 

 accurate results, and their own training was extremely 

 ill fitted for such work. For good or ill, however, 

 the theories, such as they were, were formulated, re- 

 ceived the name of " laws," and then there came into 

 being those curious survivals known as the " laws of 

 friction," so familiar to all who were still students 

 ten or more years ago. In the early days of scientific 

 engineering education, let us say during the 'fifties 

 and 'sixties of last century, when the Prince Consort 

 gave so nobly his assistance to the furtherance of the 



