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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1295 



managing directors of limited liability com- 

 panies, who are members of sucb a committee, 

 as to -what migbt reasonably be expected of 

 men of liigli attainments and skill, whose 

 emolimients taken all round are on the whole 

 miserably insufficient. 



I think that it is in danger of being for- 

 gotten that, after all, pure science is by far 

 the most important thing. Most of the great 

 applications of science have been the products 

 of discoveries which were made without any 

 notion of such an outcome. "Witness the tre- 

 mendous series of results in electricity of 

 which the beginning was Faraday's and 

 Henry's researches on induction of currents, 

 and the conclusion was the work of Hertz on 

 electric waves. From the first came the pro- 

 duction and transmission of power by elec- 

 tricity, from the last the world has received 

 the gift of wireless telegTaphy. I am not at all 

 sure whether the great men who worked in the 

 sixty or seventy years which I have indicated 

 would have always received grants for pro- 

 posed researches, which to many of the good 

 business directors and other supermen serving 

 on a great bureau of investigation, had such 

 then existed, would have appeared fantastic 

 and visionary. In research, in pure science at 

 least, control will inevitably defeat itself. The 

 scientific discoverer hardly knows whither he 

 is being led : by a path he knows not he comes 

 to his own. He should be free as the wind. 

 But I must not be misunderstood. Most cer- 

 tainly it is right to encourage research in ap- 

 plied science by all available and legitimate 

 means. But beware of attempting to control 

 or " capture " the laboratories of pure science 

 in the universities and colleges of the coun- 

 try. Let there be also ample provision for the 

 pursuit of science for its own sake ; the return 

 will in the future as in the past surpass all 

 exipectation. 



I had intended to say something about sci- 

 entific education as exemplified by the teach- 

 ing of physics. I have left myself little time 

 or space for this. I can not quite pass the 

 matter over, but I shall compress my remarks. 

 In the first place I regard dynamics, especially 

 rotational dynamics, as the foundation of all 



physics, and it is axiomatic that the founda- 

 tion of a great structure should be soundly 

 and solidly laid. The implications of dynam- 

 ics are at present undergoing a very strict and 

 searching examination, and now we may say 

 that a step in advance has been taken from the 

 Newtonian standpoint, and that a new and 

 important development of dynamics has come 

 into being. I refer of course to the new theo- 

 ries of relativity, which are now attracting so 

 much attention. I hope to learn from the dis- 

 cussions, which we may possibly have, some- 

 thing of the latest ideas on this very funda- 

 mental subject of research. It is a matter for 

 congratulation that so many excellent accounts 

 of relativity are now available in English. 

 Some earlier discussions are so very general in 

 their mathematical treatment and notation as 

 to be exceedingly difficult to master com- 

 pletely. I have attacked Minkowski's paper 

 more than once, but have felt repelled, not by 

 the difficulties of his analysis, but by that of 

 marshalling and keeping track of all his re- 

 sults. Einstein's papers I have not yet been 

 able to obtain. Hence it is a source of gratifi- 

 cation to have Professor Eddington's interest- 

 ing Eeport to the Physical Society and the 

 other excellent treatises which we have in 

 English. But continual thought and envisag- 

 ing of the subject is still required to give any- 

 thing approaching to instinctive appreciation 

 such as we have in ordinary Newrtonian dy- 

 namics. I venture to say that the subject is 

 preeminently one for physicists and physical 

 mathematicians. In some ways the new ideas 

 bring us back to Newton's standjKjint as re- 

 gards so-called absolute rotation, a subject on 

 which I have never thought that discussions 

 of the foundations of djmamics had said ab- 

 solutely the last word. 



The better the student of physics is grounded 

 in the older dynamics, and especially in the 

 dynamics of rotation, the sooner will he be 

 able to place himself at the new point of view, 

 and the sooner will his way of looking at 

 things begin to become instructive. 



With regard to the study of physics in our 

 universities and colleges, I had written a good 

 deal. I have put that aside for the present. 



