TEANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 



Section A.— MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

 President of the Section — Professor Arthur Schuster, Ph.D., F.B.S., F.R.A.S. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 4. 

 The President delivered the following Address : — 



In opening the proceedings of our annual meeting the temptation is great to look back 

 on the year which has passed and to select for special consideration such work 

 published during its course as may seem to be of the greatest importance. I fear, 

 however, that a year is too short a time to allow us to form a fair estimate of the 

 value of a scientific investigation. The mushroom, which shoots up quickly, only 

 to disappear again, impresses us more than the slow-growing seedling which will 

 live to be a tree, and it is difficult to recognise the scientific fungus in its early 

 stage. But, although I do not feel competent to give you a review of the progress 

 made in our subject during the last twelve months, there is one event to which 

 some allusion should be made. It has been the sad duty of many of my pre- 

 decessors to announce the death of successful workers in the field of science, but 

 I believe I am unique in having the pleasure of recording the birth of a scientific 

 man. At the beginning of this year there came into the world a being so brilliant 

 that he could, without preparation, take up the work of the most eminent man 

 amongst us. Believers in the transmigration of souls have speculated on the fact 

 that Galileo's death and Newton's birth fell within a year of each other ; but no 

 event has ever happened so striking as that which took place on the 1st of January, 

 when the mantle of Sir William Thomson fell on the infant Lord Kelvin. Those 

 who have attended these meetings will feel with me that the honour done to our 

 foremost representative, an honour which has been a source of pride and satis- 

 faction to every student of science, could not altogether remain unnoticed in the 

 section which owes him so much. 



We are chiefly concerned here with the increase of scientific knowledge, and 

 we derive pleasure in contrasting the minor state of ignorance of our own time 

 with that which prevailed a hundred years ago. But when we contrast at the 

 same time the refined opportunities of a modern research laboratory with the 

 crude conditions under which the experimentalist had to work at the beginning of 

 the century, we may fairly ask ourselves whether it is possible by means of any 

 systematic course of study or by means of any organisation to accelerate our pro- 

 gress into the dark continent of science. A number of serious considerations arise 

 in connection with this subject, and though I am not going to weary you by 

 attempting an exhaustive discussion, I should like to draw your attention to a 

 few matters which seem to me to be well worthy of the consideration of this Asso- 

 ciation. Changes are constantly made or proposed in our existing institutions, 



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