July 23, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



113 



Fig. 15. Electricity and Magnetism; Dotted 

 Line, Applied Mathematics (J scale). 



fairly steadily toward that fraction. It has 

 been mentioned already that 1873 was the 

 year of publication of Maxwell's "Elec- 

 tricity and Magnetism," and of Thomson 

 and Tait's "Natural Philosophy." Max- 

 well's book appears in German translation 

 in 1883. About 1880 Hertz began his re- 

 markable experimental work verifying the 

 theories of Faraday and Maxwell, with 

 effects certainly contributory to the swell- 

 ing of this tide. An apparent ebb near 

 1894 is explained in part by the increasing 

 preoccupation of the referee in that depart- 

 ment. Immediately after that date the in- 

 crease of matter is resumed, partly under 

 the new stimulus of Eontgen rays (1897) 

 and of the electron theory (about 1902). 

 By comparison, this special impulse seems 

 not to be shared by the other departments 

 of applied mathematics. 



A careful inspection of these graphs 

 might lead some specialists to lament the 

 constant shifting of the center of mathe- 

 matical interest. To students, however, who 

 are about embarking on the sea of research, 

 it may yield such profitable hints as the 

 mariner draws from a chart of prevailing 

 winds and currents. H. S. White 



Vassae College 



NICBOLAI ALEXEYEVICR OVMOV 

 The recent death of Professor Nicholai 

 Alexeyevich Oumov deprived Eussia and the 

 world of one of those remarkable men, unfor- 

 tunately rare in our age of sharply defined 



specialization, in whom the powers of analysis 

 and synthesis were so well blended together, 

 as to enable him to be more than simply a 

 great physicist, or a great chemist, or a great 

 cosmographer, but a great philosopher. 



It seems that modesty is a usual attribute of 

 greatness, and Oumov was a modest man, in- 

 deed. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that 

 he is so very little known in this country and 

 in England, although the continental Europe, 

 especially Germany, knows him well and has a 

 profound respect for his works. His biog- 

 raphy, however, seems to be a matter of knowl- 

 edge only within a small circle of his country- 

 men, and it seems desirable to supply this 

 want. 



Oumov was born in 1846. To his father, a 

 physician by profession, he owes his profound 

 and wide interest in physical science. At the 

 age of twenty-three he was graduated by the 

 faculty of physics and mathematics of the 

 University of Moscow. After his graduation 

 he entered the car-construction works of 

 Williams and Buchteeff. Later on he regis- 

 tered at the St. Petersburg Technological In- 

 stitute, but after two months' attendance, he 

 received an offer to return to the University 

 of Moscow and prepare for a professorship 

 there. 



In 1871, however, he received appointment 

 as a privat-docent in physics at the Univer- 

 sity of Odessa, where, several years later, he 

 was promoted to professorship. In 1893 he 

 was transferred to the University of Moscow, 

 where he lectured successively on general, 

 mathematical and experimental physics. 



In 1905 the Eussian universities received a 

 charter of autonomy, by which the adminis- 

 tration of the institutions was left in the 

 hands of the university council, while the stu- 

 dent body received certain privileges of self- 

 government. However, towards the end of 

 1910, when the late Kasso became the Eussian 

 minister of education, attempts were made to 

 deprive the universities of their autonomy. 

 Early in 1911 a strike of the Moscow students, 

 provoked by the agents of the police, as was 

 later determined, gave the government the de- 

 sired opportunity, and police control over the 



