SCIENCE 



Feidat, November 20, 1914 



CONTENTS 

 The Mathematician in Modern Physics: Pro- 

 fessor Cabl Barxis 721 



Contemporary University Proile'nis: Presi- 

 dent G. Stanley Hall 727 



Bussian versus American Sealing: George 

 Archibald Clark 736 



Scientific Notes and News 739 



University and Educational News 743 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The Association of University Professors: 

 Professor Arthur O. Lovejot. Atmos- 

 pheric Optical Phenomena: G. Fitzhtjgh 

 Talman 744 



Foot-and-Mouth Disease 746 



Scientific BooTcs: — ■ 

 Perception, Physics and Reality: Professor 

 Louis Teenchard More. Bessey's The Es- 

 sentials of College Botany: Professor 

 Beyon D. Halsted'. Cannon on the Botan- 

 ical Features of the Algerian Sahara: 

 Thomas H. Kearney. The British Ant- 

 arctic "Terra Nova" Expedition: Dr. "Wm. 

 H. Ball 747 



Special Articles: — 



The Failure of Equalising Opportunity to 

 reduce Individual Differences: Professor 

 Edward L. Thorndieie. Phosphate Depos- 

 its in the Mississippian BooTcs of Northern 

 Utah : William Peterson 753 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Ga 

 On-Hudson, N. Y. 



THE MATHEMATICIAN IN MODEBN PHYS- 

 ICS^ 



It is perhaps presumptuous for an experi- 

 mental physicist to address a body of mathe- 

 maticians. He can at best appeal. They are 

 the arbiters of his science. They determine 

 the number of cubic feet allotted for his antics. 

 In a genial mood, they may give him the 

 equivalent number of cubic, centimeters. 

 Physicists appreciate the clemency. Let no- 

 body contend that there are, necessarily, laws 

 of nature. In science, as in civil law, the ex- 

 perts in a measure make the facts. So I ap- 

 peal to the law-givers of physics, with a pur- 

 pose of exhibiting something of the method 

 with which they have supposedly treated me, 

 in the past forty years of my experience. If I 

 am obtrusively personal I must be pardoned, 

 for this is the only experience I have to give. 

 - We, the experimentalists, are supposed to be 

 the artists of science, a type of men who reach 

 conclusions by intuition, by a happy leap in 

 the dark. The inventor, the laboratory her- 

 mit, parades an essentially feminine type of 

 mind, whereas the eternal masculine, the es- 

 sentially logical trenchency, belongs to the 

 mathematician. In all humility, however, in 

 the dark recesses of the laboratory, there are 

 skeptics who believe that both the physicist 

 and the mathematician, in the main, follow 

 the method of trial and error; that both de- 

 velop from idea to idea. The usual outcome 

 in the mathematical case is a huge paper 

 basket, overflowing and standing in the waste ; 

 the outcome in the other, a sort of dismal 

 morgue, a junk-shop of botches. Failures 

 have been the rule, successes the exception. 

 But as we flaunt our successes (and they only 



1 From an address given at the dinner of the 

 American Mathematical Society, in Providence, 

 September, 1914, on the occasion of the one hun- 

 dred and fiftieth anniversary of Brown Univer- 

 sity, by Professor Carl Barus. 



