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FREDERIC JOY PIRANI, M.A., C.E. 



Frederic Joy Pirani was born at Birmingham on the 23rd of 

 December, 1850. At the age of nine he was brought to Melbourne 

 by his parents, who placed him in 1863 in the Church of England 

 Grammar School. He was there a pupil of the Rev. Dr. Bromby, 

 under whom he developed a taste for mathematics and natural 

 science, and made so much progress with his studies that he very- 

 soon won the Foundation Scholarship for boys under fourteen years 

 of age. He became captain of the school in 1866, and at the close 

 of that year matriculated with credit, gaining the entrance exhibitions 

 for classics and mathematics. Next year he passed his first ex- 

 aminations in arts and in engineering at the University with first- 

 class honours, being awarded the exhibition for mathematics. In 1868 

 he passed the examination for second year of civil engineering with 

 first-class honours, again winning the exhibition for mathematics. In 

 1869 he passed the final examination for civil engineering with second- 

 class honours, and likewise his second year for arts with first-class 

 honours. In 1870 he obtained to degree of B.A., and in the follow- 

 ing year won the University Scholarship for mathematics and 

 physics. In 1873 he took his degree of M.A. . 



In the same year, 1873, he was appointed Lecturer on Elementary 

 Mathematics and Logic at the University, in which position he 

 remained till the death of the late Professor Wilson, when a re- 

 arrangement of duties among the professorial staff made him 

 Lecturer on Logic and Natural Philosophy. 



Mr. Pirani was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1873, 

 and signed the members' book on the 8th of December in that year. 

 He was appointed Secretary to the Society in the following year, and 

 was active and zealous in fulfilling the duties of that position. 



On 12th October, 1874, he read a paper entitled, " On some 

 Processes of Scientific Reasoning;" on the 12th April, 1877, another 

 on " Force." In 1878 he read two papers, " Sir "William Thom- 

 son's Electric Replenisher," and " Sir William Thomson's Form of 

 Daniell's Constant Battery." In 1881 he read two papers, one 

 explanatory of a new form of tangent galvanometer, invented by 

 himself, another on a modification of Mance's method of measuring 

 resistances. 



