100 YEARS AGO

THE BEST EDUCATION FOR AN ENGINEER

A study of the classics and a public school education are frequently regarded as synonymous, and so the advantages of the one are confounded with the advantages of the other. At the present time, when so much attention is devoted in secondary and technical schools to matter rather than to manner, when the aim apparently is to turn out scientific encylopaedias rather than fairly well-informed people with cultivated manners, the following opinion expressed by Sir Andrew Noble should be taken to heart by every engineering student: “Speaking as an employer of labour, I should say that we find a pleasant speech and manner, tact in dealing with others, and some power of organisation of the utmost value; and it is precisely those qualities which a boy acquires, or ought to acquire, in his later years at a public school. Without such qualities even the highest scientific attainments will never make a captain of industry, and in selecting candidates for appointments the man of business distinctly prefers a youth who has had the benefit of some years at a good school.”

From Nature 12 October 1899.

50 YEARS AGO

In a fascinating article which appeared in Nature of February 6, under the title “Stellar Evolution and the Expanding Universe”, Mr. F. Hoyle has brought forward convincing arguments for the permanent creation of matter in space. Many physicists will find it difficult to accept this hypothesis. For if there is any law which has withstood all changes and revolutions in physics, it is the law of conservation of energy, which according to Einstein's formula E=mc2 is equivalent to the conservation of mass. The same strange conclusion has, during recent years, been formulated by Prof. Pascual Jordan, but with an important modification, whereby the conservation law is not violated. This is achieved by taking account of the loss of gravitational energy connected with the creation of particles. As Jordan's papers do not seem to be known to many English-speaking physicists, I have asked him to write a short report of his work, and the following article is a translation of his article made by my collaborator, Dr. H. S. Green.

Max Born

From Nature 15 October 1949.