SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



243 



Dr. Albert Giinther, F.R.S., the learned head of 

 the Zoological Department of the British Museum, 



writes : 



Britisb Museum, Cromwell Road, 



London, W. ; December 13th, 1894. 

 Dear Sir, — The illegitimacy of formation of the 

 word "Scientist" has been sufficiently exposed in 

 the daily press of a week or so ago. I believe it 

 has been shown to be an American importation. 

 However, as within the last quarter of a century a 

 crowd of writers has sprung up who dabble in 

 science, and especially in the great scientific 

 questions of our time, the word " Scientist " might 

 be retained as an appropriate term for this class. 

 Yours truly, A. Gunther. 



John T. Carrington, Esq. 



There appears to be a general opinion that the 

 word is of American origin. This is not so, as its 

 first use, accompanied by an explanation, was by 

 Whewell, as already stated, in the 1840 edition of 

 his " Philosophy." There he says, after mentioning 

 the word "physicist ": "We need very much a name 

 to describe a cultivator of science in general. I 

 should incline to call him a ' scientist.' " That it is 

 American we allow, in so far as it has there been 

 nursed through its childhood and adolescence, but 

 we do not think that it would have ever reached its 

 majority had it depended for support on the 

 majority of educated people of the land of its 

 birth. 



ILLUSTRATING SOUND-CURVES. 



By Joseph Goold. 





6> 



CcJ 3 I 



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'T" v O have this interesting subject treated concisely, 

 two classes of readers must be disappointed — 

 those who know much about it, and those who 

 know little. The former will be wearied with 

 elementary facts ; the latter will find themselves 

 bewildered with a strange phraseology. I will 

 strive to have mercy on both, 

 but mercy to the one generally 

 means cruelty to the other. 



Sound-curves are compound- 

 vibration-figures, the simplest 

 forms of that enormously com- 

 prehensive class of natural 

 phenomena. Almost the total 

 energy of creation — so far as 

 we know — is conveyed to our 

 earth and to other worlds as 

 compound vibrations through 

 the medium of the universal 

 ether. Few, if any, natural 

 forms are built up by any 

 mode of energy not included 

 in the vibration category. 

 Gravitation itself acts, in most 

 cases, simply as a component 

 of some form of compound 

 vibration. 



It is useless for us to try 

 to trace the deft and subtle 

 methods of the first cause 

 whilst we are in utter ignorance 

 of the mechanism by which it 

 starts and keeps the work in 

 operation. We have no faculties 

 capable of discriminating the 

 function in its methods. 



A harmonic vibration is the 

 to-and-fro motion set up in 



iJX 



Goold's Twin-elliptic Pendulum. 



an elastic body, as the result of a momentary 

 impulse communicated to it from without. This 

 to-and-fro motion, once started, would continue for 

 ever if the vibrating body moved without friction 

 and met with no opposing force, for vibration does 

 not consume energy but transforms it. The energy 

 of a vibrating body is perpetu- 

 ally being transformed from the 

 kinetic to the potential condi- 

 tion, and back again from 

 potential to kinetic. Which 

 is the cause and which the con- 

 sequence it is impossible to 

 say ; but inseparable from this 

 perpetual transformation of 

 energy is an incessant variation 

 of velocity. When its energy 

 is entirely kinetic the velocity 

 of the vibrating body is quick- 

 est ; when its energy is entirely 

 potential its velocity is nil. A 

 clear and precise idea of the 

 order of this variation of 

 velocity may be obtained thus : 

 imagine a straight line to move 

 across a circle at right angles 

 to the diameter at such a rate 

 as to pass through equal por- 

 tions of the circumference in 

 equal time-periods, its motion 

 across the diameter will then 

 be the motion of a harmonic 

 vibration. 



A perfectly and completely 

 "elastic" body is a body (of 

 any mass whatever) so fixed 

 that, when at rest, the forces 

 holding it in position are equal 



