SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



THE THEORY OF NUMBERS. 



ADDRESS TO SECTION A (MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS) BY 



Professor G. H. HAEDY, M.A., F.E.S., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



I FIND myself to-day in the same embarrassing position in which a 

 predecessor of mine at Oxford found himself at Bradford in 3875, 

 the President of a Section which is probably the largest and most 

 heterogeneous in the Association, and which is absorbed by a multitude 

 of divergent professio^nal interests, none of which agree with his or mine. 



There are two courses possible in such circumstances. One is to 

 take refuge, as Professor Henry Smith, with visible reluctance, did then, 

 in a series of general propositions to which mathematicians, physicists, 

 and astronomers may all be expected to- return a polite assent. The 

 importance of science and scientific method, the need for better organisa- 

 tion of scientific education and research, are all topics on which I could 

 no doubt say something without undue strain either on my own honesty 

 or on your credulity. That there is no finer education and discipline 

 than natural science; that it is, as Dr. Campbell has said, ' the noblest 

 of thei arts ' ; that the crowning achievements of science liei in those 

 directions with which this Section is pro'fessiooally concerned : all this 

 I could say with complete sincerity, and, if I were the head of a deputa- 

 tion approaching a Government Department, I suppose that I would 

 not shirk even so unprofitable a task. 



It is unfortunate that these essential and edifying truths, important 

 as it is that they should be repeated as loudly as possible from time 

 to time, are, to the man whose interest in life lies in scientific work and 

 not in propaganda, unexciting, and in fact quite intolerably dull. I 

 could, if I chose, say all these things, but, even if I wanted to, I should 

 hardly increase your respect for mathematics and mathematicians by 

 repeating to you what you have said yourselves, or read in the news- 

 papers, a hundred times already. I shall say them all some day; the 

 time will come when we shall none of us have anything more interesting 

 to say. We need not anticipate our inevitable end. 



I propose therefore to adopt the alternative course suggested by my 

 predecessor, and to try to say something to you about something about 

 which I have something to say. There is only one subject about which 

 I have anything to say, and that is pure mathematics. It happens, by a 

 fortunate accident, that the particular subject which I love the most, 

 and which presents most of the problems which occupy my own re- 

 searches, is by no means overwhelmingly recondite or obscure, and 

 indeed is sharply distinguished from almost every other branch of pure 

 mathematics, in that it makes a direct, popular, and almost irresistible 

 appeal to the heart of the ordinary man. 



