April 24, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



599 



The divergence of the new and the old 

 mechanics occurs only for actions of separate 

 electrons, of unattainable velocities, of energy 

 existing in the chemical atom, and of radiant 

 energy in empty space unassociated with 

 matter. Now there are many men of science 

 who think these problems are metaphysical, in 

 that they do not deal with measurable bodies 

 or with phenomena capable of experimental 

 verification. And there is a great likelihood 

 that problems of such a nature are incapa- 

 ble of scientific solution and are apt to drift 

 into a discussion more of definitions and of 

 words than of objective facts. 



The warning which was given by Poiucare, 

 shortly before he died, is one to be heeded by 

 the over-zealous. 



If, however, in some years, its rival (the new 

 mechanics) triumphs, I shall venture to point out 

 a pedagogic error that a number of teachers, in 

 France at least, will not escape. These teachers 

 will find nothing more important, in teaching ele- 

 mentary mechanics to their scholars, than to in- 

 form them that this mechanics has had its day, 

 that a new mechanics where the notions of mass 

 and of time have a wholly different value re- 

 places it; they will look down upon this lapsed 

 mechanics that the programs force them to teach 

 and will make their scholars feel the contempt 

 they have for it. Yet I believe that this dis- 

 dained classic mechanics will be as necessary as 

 now, and that whoever does not know it thor- 

 oughly can not understand the new mechanics. 

 Louis T. More 



University op Cincinnati, 

 December 3, 1913 



GEORGE WESTINGEOUSE 

 My acquaintance with Mr. Westinghouse 

 commenced in the spring of 186Y in Pitts- 

 burgh. He was at that time introducing to 

 the railroads a patent car replacer and a 

 double-headed railroad frog, both of his inven- 

 tion. These were being manufactured by 

 Messrs. Anderson, Cook & Company, crucible 

 steel manufacturers, I being employed by the 

 same company. He was doing the selling — at 

 the same time making his first acquaintance 

 the same way as his more universal law of gravita- 

 tion is accurate for ponderable bodies but fails for 

 intangible molecular bodies. 



with railroad men, so valuable to him in later 

 years. We lived at the same hotel and later 

 on, after we were both married for about a year, 

 we lived in the same house on Penn Avenue, 

 next door to where the great Westinghouse 

 Building now stands, and, being of congenial 

 tastes, our acquaintance ripened into a warm 

 friendship which continued up to the time of 

 his death. 



During this time he often talked of the idea 

 of operating the brakes of a railroad train by 

 compressed air, one of the greatest advantages 

 of which he thought would be the putting of 

 the full control of all movements of the train 

 into the hands of the engineer. He had wit- 

 nessed a collision between two trains and saw 

 the necessity of some better apparatus for con- 

 trolling their speed than what was then in use. 

 Not having the money to pay the expense of 

 the first equipment, which only amounted to 

 $750, he gave a very substantial interest in the 

 patent to one of the men who was afterward 

 associated with him, in return for the neces- 

 sary capital. This gentleman made over 

 $2,000,000 out of this interest in the Brake 

 Company within the next twenty-five years. 



He soon had all the details of the new in- 

 vention worked out and the first train equipped. 

 It was first tried on an accommodation train 

 on the P. C. & St. L. Railroad, running west 

 from Pittsburgh. It was a success from the 

 very first, preventing a bad wreck and prob- 

 ably saving several lives within a week after 

 its installation. 



A company was soon formed and the manu- 

 facture of the brakes was commenced within a 

 few months. He added from time to time im- 

 provement after improvement until in 1886 he 

 brought out the automatic quick-action brake. 

 The greatest rival of the air brake at that time 

 was an electric brake. After studying this 

 problem for some time, Mr. Westinghouse an- 

 nounced to his associates that he had con- 

 ceived the idea of an improvement in the air 

 brake that would make its operation quicker 

 than the electric. No one could understand 

 how this could be true, but when the brake 

 was constructed and put in operation they 

 found it was a fact. 



