144: Scientific Intelligence. 



a deflection of the galvanometer of 32 scale divisions, and the 

 value of the cathode energy E K = 4*8 g. cal per second, assum- 

 ing that 42 per cent of the energy is absorbed in the walls of the 

 tube and that as much energy of the Rontgen rays goes into the 

 anticathode as comes out, the following results were obtained 

 for the case of absorption in platinum: 

 E R = 5*14.10 g. cal per sec. 



=?= 1-07.10. 



JC-K 



— Ann. der Physik, No. 15, 1906, pp. 955-971. j. t. 



8. The Scientific Papers of J. Willard Gibbs. With Preface 

 by H. A. Bumstbat) and R. G. Van Name. Vol. I. Thermody- 

 namics. Pp. xxviii, 434. Vol. II. Vector Analysis and Multi- 

 ple Algebra, Electromagnetic Theory of Light, etc. Pp. viii,. 

 284. London and New York, 1906 (Longmans, Green & Co.). — 

 The publication of the collected works of an eminent scientist 

 serves the double purpose of forming a memorial to the genius 

 of the writer and of increasing the usefulness of his labors by 

 making his writings more accessible to other workers. It is in 

 connection with the second of these purposes rather than the 

 first that one is inclined to consider the present volumes. They 

 form, it is true, a memorial, and a fitting memorial, to the great- 

 ness of Professor Gibbs' scientific work, but we feel that a me- 

 morial was hardly needed — his greatness is too well established and 

 his work too well known for either to be enhanced at this stage 

 by the publication of volumes of paper and ink. We welcome 

 the collected papers mainly because they make his writings acces- 

 sible and enable us to see directly for ourselves the basis on 

 which his reputation is founded. 



It is hardly too much to say that notwithstanding his tremen- 

 dous reputation there has hardly been a scientist in the front 

 rank whose work has been as little studied at first hand, as 

 Professor Gibbs. In his earlier years the importance of his 

 papers was not understood at all ; afterwards it was known only 

 to a few from a first hand study of the papers. The majority of 

 workers have realized his greatness solely by the far-reaching 

 importance of the results associated with his name : they have 

 regarded him as working in a world of his own creation, as 

 " voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone," — and they 

 have not read his papers. One cannot of course bring an indict- 

 ment against the whole scientific world ; if Gibbs' papers have 

 been generally regarded as unapproachable, the cause must be 

 looked for in the papers themselves. A large part of this cause 

 is undoubtedly to be found in the somewhat repellant notation 

 and terminology adopted by Gibbs, and in the absence of 

 concrete ideas and illustrations connecting his abstruse mathe- 

 matical processes with the particular w^orld of thought in which 

 physicists are accustomed to move. For these and other reasons, 

 the papers are to many an unexplored mine of wealth : it is for 



