The literary digest . INARY A SCIENCE, THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL THE FOLLY of objecting to new discoveries becausethey are not practical is brought out by Prof. TheodoreW. Richards, of Harvard, at the conclusion of a recentaddress before the American Association for the Advancementof Science, printed in Science(New York, January 3). Inthis address, on The Problemof Radioactive Lead, Pro-fessor Richards tells how it hasbeen recently demonstratedthat there are at least two landsof lead, indistinguishable to theeye or by ordinary chemicaltests, but of different densitiesand atomic weight. One the
The literary digest . INARY A SCIENCE, THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL THE FOLLY of objecting to new discoveries becausethey are not practical is brought out by Prof. TheodoreW. Richards, of Harvard, at the conclusion of a recentaddress before the American Association for the Advancementof Science, printed in Science(New York, January 3). Inthis address, on The Problemof Radioactive Lead, Pro-fessor Richards tells how it hasbeen recently demonstratedthat there are at least two landsof lead, indistinguishable to theeye or by ordinary chemicaltests, but of different densitiesand atomic weight. One theoryis that these different leads arethe result of disintegration oftwo different chemical series ofsubstances. This has the mostinteresting bearings on theoriesof the constitution of matter,but to the ordinary citizen itspractical uses would seem tobe undiscoverable. ProfessorRichards, however, reminds usthat one never can teU at whatpoint practical results wiUspring from the apparently use-less in science. He writes:. Illustrations by courtesy of The Scientific American, New York. IT CRACKS FIVE TONS OF NTJTS A DAY WITHOUT CRUSHING THEM. Faraday had no conceptionof the electric locomotive or the power-plants of Niagara when he performed those crucialexperiments with magnets and wires that laid the basis for thedynamo. Nearly fifty years elapsed before his experiments onelectric induction in moving wires bore fruit in a practicalelectric-lighting system; and yet more years before the trolley-car, depending equally upon the principles discovered by Fara-day, became an every-day occurrence. At the time of dis-covery, even if the wide bearing and extraordinary usefulnessof his experiments could have been foreseen by him, they werecertainly hidden from the world at large. The laws of nature can not be intelligently appUed untilthey are understood, and in order to understand them, manyexperiments bearing upon the fundamental nature of thingsmust be made, in order that all may be com
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