June 5, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



attractive. Geology has heretofore been 

 mainly in the qualitative state. Its work- 

 ers have been busy developing the processes 

 involved and have had only the crudest 

 means of elimination when it was necessary 

 to test one hypothesis against another. As 

 Van Hise has pointed out, we have now at 

 least entered into the quantitative stage 

 and this means nothing less than the re- 

 duction to an orderly basis of the ac- 

 cumulated observations of all the years 

 past. As we accomplish this we shall 

 change our science from an inexact one of 

 hypothesis to an exact one of law; and we 

 shall then stand on an equal basis as 

 regards certainty with our associates of 

 the physical and mathematical sciences. 

 This is certainly a field large enough and 

 important enough to attract the best ener- 

 gies of any man or woman. If our acad- 

 emy shall help to put the right man in 

 touch with his problem and the means of 

 solving it, we shall quickly justify its 

 existence. 



H. Foster Bain 

 Urbana, III. 



OUTLOOK FOR YOUNG MEN IN PHYSICS 

 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: Sudden 

 and unexpected as this call is, I feel bound 

 by the courteous manner in which the in- 

 vitation is extended to respond. 



The opportunities offered by the science 

 of physics may for convenience, at least, 

 be grouped under the four following 

 heads : 



(1) Research. — To him who finds his 

 "manifest destiny" in investigation, the 

 recent discoveries of physical science have 

 vastly multiplied the opportunities for 

 new discoveries. To illustrate; when 

 Hertz in the autumn of 1888 showed us 

 how to produce electric waves, a tremen- 

 dous field was opened to research. The 

 various properties of waves of different 

 lengths under different conditions all had 

 to be studied. Every year some new do- 



main of this kind is made ready for oc- 

 cupation by the earnest and serious 

 student. 



(2) Applied Physics.— For him who has 

 that practical turn of mind which char- 

 acterized Franklin and has yet preserved 

 an interest in pure science (which also 

 characterized Franklin) there is always a 

 rare opportunity. In the autumn of 1831 

 Faraday not only discovered the induction 

 of electric currents, but also actually made 

 an electric motor and an electric generator 

 about the same time. But it was not until 

 the late sixties that the dynamo became a 

 commercial success. This delay is typical 

 of the mental hysteresis which generally 

 separates discoveries in physical science 

 from their industrial applications. 



It was seven years after Hertz's dis- 

 covery of electric waves before Marconi 

 showed them to have commercial value; 

 and it has taken practically twenty years 

 to employ them for transatlantic messages. 

 In these intervening periods lies great op- 

 portunity for the alert "practical mind." 



(3) Ejigineering. —'Nearly all the great 

 engineering concerns of America are look- 

 ing for more men than they can find of 

 the broadly trained type— men who are 

 acquainted, at first hand, with the general 

 principles of physical science. A man 

 may know every machine in the shop of an 

 engineering firm and yet not know how to 

 design a new mechanism to meet a new 

 want or a new circumstance. What is de- 

 manded to-day is, therefore, not so much 

 an acquaintance with present-day practise 

 as a thorough mastery of the fundamental 

 principles of engineering— and these are 

 mainly the principles of physics. 



(4) Teaching.— The high salaries which 

 engineering concerns are offering to men 

 well trained in physical science and to men 

 of executive ability have had the effect of 

 leaving vacant many excellent teaching 

 positions in physics. The door is wide 



