Excerpt from Universities, Research and Brain Waste

The research workers are makers of modern history as no other body of men are. The difference between the conditions under which our forefathers lived three hundred years ago and those under which we live to-day is due to the research workers. The layman little realizes what an influence individual men among these research workers exercise upon his daily life. In ordinary conversation the name of Shakespeare is heard more frequently than that of Newton and students of the great dramatist will be surprised to be told that Shakespeare as a factor in determining their lives is a bagatelle compared to Newton. The thought of the great scientist, as a matter of fact, permeates our civilization and can be traced distinctly in a multitude of conditions which surround our every-day life. To justify our statement, it suffices to refer briefly to Newton's discoveries of the calculus and the law of gravitation. The calculus is the basis of the greater part of higher mathematical analysis. It is the most powerful of all instruments in handling geometrical problems and it has opened up new territories in geometry which are all its own. What I want more particularly here to refer to, however, is the role which the calculus plays in connection with physical phenomena. Its aid is invoked in questions which relate to motion, light, heat, electricity. The principles of dynamics are formulated in terms of its notation. Unfortunately it has had a share in the development of modern artillery, for the theory of projectiles is an application of the calculus to the law of gravitation. It has had its place in the advances which have brought us the electric light, the trolley, the power house, telegraphy and telephony, both with and without wire. When we read the despatches and cablegrams in our morning paper we do not pause to remind ourselves that the thought of Newton is one of the factors which has made this possible. No more does it occur to the baseball enthusiast that he is under any debt to Newton when he stands before the newspaper office down town and scans the latest baseball bulletin.

Transportation by sea, by land and by air, has much for which to thank Newton. The calculus had nothing to do with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt. It has, however, done important service during the last half century or more in handling problems relating to steam engines and turbines where fundamental principles have been involved. It has had its effect on naval construction. It is involved in the general question of the relation between shape, power and speed in connection with a vessel. It is essential to the study of the strains and stresses in a ship's members. Navigation, too, depends on astronomical data the obtaining of which involves the use of the calculus. Our clocks and watches are regulated by data so obtained.

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