50 Years Ago

The circumstances of our age seem to present us with a very real problem which may fittingly be discussed under the title of “Science and the Classics”. In response to an international challenge we are engaged in expanding our educational services. The urgent need is for more scientists, more technologists, more engineers. This means a relative, if not an absolute, decline in the study of the humanities. Is this shift in the character of our education good or bad? Is there anything in the claim that the study of the humanities produced a more balanced type of man? Is there in the scientific mode of training any tendency against which it is desirable to be on our guard? I think that there is a tendency among scientists to suppose that the physical world alone is real, and that the very successful methods they have devised for dealing with it are applicable to every aspect of life. This, to my way of thinking, is a dangerous illusion.

From Nature 30 September 1961

100 Years Ago

Exhaustive tests have been made during the last two weeks by Mr. A. W. Sharman with instruments invented by him for telephoning through water without wires. A small telephone station has been erected in a room in an hotel on the cliffs at Pegwell Bay, and the other station has been fitted up on a motor-boat cruising in various parts of the bay ... The speech transmitted through the water has been very distinct, and the system has shown good possibilities of its being used as a means of verbal communication between two ships, such as a battleship and a submarine.

From Nature 28 September 1911