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It will be evident enough from the foregoing that American science can boast no men of commanding genius no men, that is, to rank with Darwin, or Huxley, or Lord Kelvin, or Sir Isaac Newton, to mention only Englishmen. Its record has been one of respectable achievement rather than of brilliant originality, but is yet one of which we have no reason to be ashamed.
Some were mere consumers of time; others were gladly welcomed, like Lord Kelvin, the greatest physicist of the last century, with whom Edison was always in friendly communication. "The first time I saw Lord Kelvin, he came to my laboratory at Menlo Park in 1876."
We are not conjurers or judges of conjuring. Again, is a man like Professor Huxley, or Lord Kelvin, to run about the country, examining every cottage where there are rumours of curious noises, and where stones and other missiles are thrown about, by undetected hands?
Fortunately this number did not include any of those whom I have had occasion to mention in the course of this narrative. The venerable Lord Kelvin, who, notwithstanding his age, and his pacific disposition, proper to a man of science, had behaved with the courage and coolness of a veteran in every crisis; Monsieur Moissan, the eminent chemist; Prof.
It is true that the late Lord Kelvin raised difficulties in the way of the hypothesis of a direct magnetic action of the sun upon the earth, because it seemed to him that an inadmissible quantity of energy was demanded to account for such action.
Quite on the contrary the lifetime of the earth seems to be limited to a few millions of years. The researches of Lord Kelvin and other eminent physicists seem to leave no doubt on this point. Of course all estimates of this kind are only vague and approximate, but for our present purposes they may be considered as sufficiently exact.
But no calculation like that which he made is final, since all calculations depend upon the validity of the data; and no authority is unshakable in science, because no man can possess omniscience. It was Lord Kelvin who, but a few years before the thing was actually accomplished, declared that aerial navigation was an impracticable dream, and demonstrated its impracticability by calculation.
The experiments of Kelvin and Lodge and the discovery of radium, have brought forward a new theory of matter; the old-fashioned base, the atom, is now regarded as being essentially movement; matter is as wonderful and mysterious in its character as spirit. Einstein's own work of which the translation by R. W. Lawson is just published: Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.
Man's "moving" is found more "express and admirable" than that of the most perfect machine or adaptation of natural forces yet devised. Lord Kelvin says the animal motor more closely resembles an electro-magnetic engine than a heat engine, but very probably the chemical forces in animals produce the external mechanical effects through electricity and do not act as a thermo-dynamic engine.
"I can explain its details," he said, "to Lord Kelvin, for instance, but if Their Majesties will excuse me, I doubt whether I can make it plain to the Crown Heads." The Emperor William smiled superciliously. Apparently he thought that another assault had been committed upon the divine right of kings.
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