Popular scientific lectures

Chapter 9

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"I have led my ragam.u.f.fins where they were peppered."--Falstaff.

"He goes but to see a noise that he heard."--Midsummer Night"s Dream.

To shoot, in the shortest time possible, as many holes as possible in one another"s bodies, and not always for exactly pardonable objects and ideals, seems to have risen to the dignity of a duty with modern men, who, by a singular inconsistency, and in subservience to a diametrically contrary ideal, are bound by the equally holy obligation of making these holes as small as possible, and, when made, of stopping them up and of healing them as speedily as possible. Since, then, shooting and all that appertains thereto, is a very important, if not the most important, affair of modern life, you will doubtless not be averse to giving your attention for an hour to some experiments which have been undertaken, not for advancing the ends of war, but for promoting the ends of science, and which throw some light on the phenomena attending the flight of projectiles.

Modern science strives to construct its picture of the world not from speculations but so far as possible from facts. It verifies its constructs by recourse to observation. Every newly observed fact completes its world-picture, and every divergence of a construct from observation points to some imperfection, to some lacuna in it. What is seen is put to the test of, and supplemented by, what is thought, which is again naught but the result of things previously seen. It is always peculiarly fascinating, therefore, to subject to direct verification by observation, that is, to render palpable to the senses, something which we have only theoretically excogitated or theoretically surmised.

In 1881, on hearing in Paris the lecture of the Belgian artillerist Melsens, who hazarded the conjecture that projectiles travelling at a high rate of speed carry ma.s.ses of compressed air before them which are instrumental in producing in bodies struck by the projectiles certain well-known facts of the nature of explosions, the desire arose in me of experimentally testing his conjecture and of rendering the phenomenon, if it really existed, perceptible. The desire was the stronger as I could say that all the means for realising it existed, and that I had in part already used and tested them for other purposes.

And first let us get clear regarding the difficulties which have to be surmounted. Our task is that of observing a bullet or other projectile which is rushing through s.p.a.ce at a velocity of many hundred yards a second, together with the disturbances which the bullet causes in the surrounding atmosphere. Even the opaque solid body itself, the projectile, is only exceptionally visible under such circ.u.mstances--only when it is of considerable size and when we see its line of flight in strong perspective abridgement so that the velocity is apparently diminished. We see a large projectile quite clearly when we stand behind the cannon and look steadily along its line of flight or in the less pleasant case when the projectile is speeding towards us. There is, however, a very simple and effective method of observing swiftly moving bodies with as little trouble as if they were held at rest at some point in their path. The method is that of illumination by a brilliant electric spark of extremely short duration in a dark room. But since, for the full intellectual comprehension of a picture presented to the eye, a certain, not inconsiderable interval of time is necessary, the method of instantaneous photography will naturally also be employed. The pictures, which are of extremely minute duration, are thus permanently recorded and can be examined and a.n.a.lysed at one"s convenience and leisure.

With the difficulty just mentioned is a.s.sociated still another and greater difficulty which is due to the air. The atmosphere in its usual condition is generally not visible even when at rest. But the task presented to us is to render visible ma.s.ses of air which in addition are moving with a high velocity.

To be visible, a body must either emit light itself, must shine, or must affect in some way the light which falls upon it, must take up that light entirely or partly, absorb it, or must have a deflective effect upon it, that is, reflect or refract it. We cannot see the air as we can a flame, for it shines only exceptionally, as in a Geissler"s tube. The atmosphere is extremely transparent and colorless; it cannot be seen, therefore, as a dark or colored body can, or as chlorine gas can, or vapor of bromine or iodine. Air, finally, has so small an index of refraction and so small a deflective influence upon light, that the refractive effect is commonly imperceptible altogether.

A gla.s.s rod is visible in air or in water, but it is almost invisible in a mixture of benzol and bisulphuret of carbon, which has the same mean index of refraction as the gla.s.s. Powdered gla.s.s in the same mixture has a vivid coloring, because owing to the decomposition of the colors the indices are the same for only one color which traverses the mixture unimpeded, whilst the other colors undergo repeated reflexions.[111]

Water is invisible in water, alcohol in alcohol. But if alcohol be mixed with water the flocculent streaks of the alcohol in the water will be seen at once and vice versa. And in like manner the air, too, under favorable circ.u.mstances, may be seen. Over a roof heated by the burning sun, a tremulous wavering of objects is noticeable, as there is also over red-hot stoves, radiators, and registers. In all these cases tiny flocculent ma.s.ses of hot and cold air, of slightly differing refrangibility, are mingled together.

In like manner the more highly refracting parts of non-h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.ses of gla.s.s, the so-called striA or imperfections of the gla.s.s, are readily detectible among the less refracting parts which const.i.tute the bulk of the same. Such gla.s.ses are unserviceable for optical purposes, and special attention has been devoted to the investigation of the methods for eliminating or avoiding these defects. The result has been the development of an extremely delicate method for detecting optical faults--the so-called method of Foucault and Toepler--which is suitable also for our present purpose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 49.]

Even Huygens when trying to detect the presence of striA in polished gla.s.ses viewed them under oblique illumination, usually at a considerable distance, so as to give full scope to the aberrations, and had recourse for greater exact.i.tude to a telescope. But the method was carried to its highest pitch of perfection in 1867 by Toepler who employed the following procedure: A small luminous source a (Fig. 49) illuminates a lens L which throws an image b of the luminous source. If the eye be so placed that the image falls on the pupil, the entire lens, if perfect, will appear equally illuminated, for the reason that all points of it send out rays to the eye. Coa.r.s.e imperfections of form or of h.o.m.ogeneity are rendered visible only in case the aberrations are so large that the light from many spots pa.s.ses by the pupil of the eye. But if the image b be partly intercepted by the edge of a small slide, then those spots in the lens as thus partly darkened will appear brighter whose light by its greater aberrations still reaches the eye in spite of the intercepting slide, while those spots will appear darker which in consequence of aberration in the other direction throw their light entirely upon the slide. This artifice of the intercepting slide which had previously been employed by Foucault for the investigation of the optical imperfections of mirrors enhances enormously the delicacy of the method, which is still further augmented by Toepler"s employment of a telescope behind the slide. Toepler"s method, accordingly, enjoys all the advantages of the Huygens and the Foucault procedure combined. It is so delicate that the minutest irregularities in the air surrounding the lens can be rendered distinctly visible, as I shall show by an example. I place a candle before the lens L (Fig. 50) and so arrange a second lens M that the flame of the candle is imaged upon the screen S. As soon as the intercepting slide is pushed into the focus, b, of the light issuing from a, you see the images of the changes of density and the images of the movements induced in the air by the flame quite distinctly upon the screen. The distinctness of the phenomenon as a whole depends upon the position of the intercepting slide b. The removal of b increases the illumination but decreases the distinctness. If the luminous source a be removed, we see the image of the candle flame only upon the screen S. If we remove the flame and allow a to continue shining, the screen S will appear uniformly illuminated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 50.]

After Toepler had sought long and in vain to render the irregularities produced in air by sound-waves visible by this principle, he was at last conducted to his goal by the favorable circ.u.mstances attending the production of electric sparks. The waves generated in the air by electric sparks and accompanying the explosive snapping of the same, are of sufficiently short period and sufficiently powerful to be rendered visible by these methods. Thus we see how by a careful regard for the merest and most shadowy indications of a phenomenon and by slight progressive and appropriate alterations of the circ.u.mstances and the methods, ultimately the most astounding results can be attained. Consider, for example, two such phenomena as the rubbing of amber and the electric lighting of modern streets. A person ignorant of the myriad minute links that join these two things together, will be absolutely nonplussed at their connexion, and will comprehend it no more than the ordinary observer who is unacquainted with embryology, anatomy, and paleontology will understand the connexion between a saurian and a bird. The high value and significance of the co-operation of inquirers through centuries, where each has but to take up the thread of work of his predecessors and spin it onwards, is rendered forcibly evident by such examples. And such knowledge destroys, too, in the clearest manner imaginable that impression of the marvellous which the spectator may receive from science, and at the same time is a most salutary admonishment to the worker in science against superciliousness. I have also to add the sobering remark that all our art would be in vain did not nature herself afford at least some slight guiding threads leading from a hidden phenomenon into the domain of the observable. And so it need not surprise us that once under particularly favorable circ.u.mstances an extremely powerful sound-wave which had been caused by the explosion of several hundred pounds of dynamite threw a directly visible shadow in the sunlight, as Boys has recently told us. If the sound-waves were absolutely without influence upon the light, this could not have occurred, and all our artifices would then, too, be in vain. And so, similarly, the phenomenon accompanying projectiles which I am about to show you was once in a very imperfect manner incidentally seen by a French artillerist, JournAe, while that observer was simply following the line of flight of a projectile with a telescope, just as also the undulations produced by candle flames are in a weak degree directly visible and in the bright sunlight are imaged in shadowy waves upon a uniform white background.

Instantaneous illumination by the electric spark, the method of rendering visible small optical differences or striA, which may hence be called the striate, or differential, method,[112] invented by Foucault and Toepler, and finally the recording of the image by a photographic plate,--these therefore are the chief means which are to lead us to our goal.

I inst.i.tuted my first experiments in the summer of 1884 with a target-pistol, shooting the bullet through a striate field as described above, and taking care that the projectile whilst in the field should disengage an illuminating electric spark from a Leyden jar or Franklin"s pane, which spark produced a photographic impression of the projectile upon a plate, especially arranged for the purpose. I obtained the image of the projectile at once and without difficulty. I also readily obtained, with the still rather defective dry plate which I was using, exceedingly delicate images of the sound-waves (spark-waves). But no atmospheric condensation produced by the projectile was visible. I now determined the velocity of my projectile and found it to be only 240 metres per second, or considerably less than the velocity of sound (which is 340 metres per second). I saw immediately that under such circ.u.mstances no noticeable compression of the air could be produced, for any atmospheric compression must of necessity travel forward at the same speed with sound (340 metres per second) and consequently would be always ahead of and speeding away from the projectile.

I was so thoroughly convinced, however, of the existence of the supposed phenomenon at a velocity exceeding 340 metres per second, that I requested Professor Salcher, of Fiume, an Austrian port on the Gulf of Quarnero, to undertake the experiment with projectiles travelling at a high rate of speed. In the summer of 1886 Salcher in conjunction with Professor Riegler conducted in a s.p.a.cious and suitable apartment placed at their disposal by the Directors of the Royal Imperial Naval Academy, experiments of the kind indicated and conforming in method exactly to those which I had inst.i.tuted, with the precise results expected. The phenomenon, in fact, accorded perfectly with the a priori sketch of it which I had drafted previously to the experiment. As the experimenting was continued, new and unforeseen features made their appearance.

It would be unfair, of course, to expect from the very first experiments faultless and highly distinct photographs. It was sufficient that success was secured and that I had convinced myself that further labor and expenditure would not be vain. And on this score I am greatly indebted to the two gentlemen above mentioned.

The Austrian Naval Department subsequently placed a cannon at Salcher"s disposal in Pola, an Adriatic seaport, and I myself, together with my son, then a student of medicine, having received and accepted a courteous invitation from Krupp, repaired to Meppen, a town in Hanover, where we conducted with only the necessary apparatus several experiments on the open artillery range. All these experiments furnished tolerably good and complete pictures. Some little progress, too, was made. The outcome of our experience on both artillery ranges, however, was the settled conviction that really good results could be obtained only by the most careful conduct of the experiments in a laboratory especially adapted to the purpose. The expensiveness of the experiments on a large scale was not the determining consideration here, for the size of the projectile is indifferent. Given the same velocity and the results are quite similar, whether the projectiles are large or small. On the other hand, in a laboratory the experimenter has perfect control over the initial velocity, which, provided the proper equipment is at hand, can be altered at will simply by altering the charge and the weight of the projectile. The requisite experiments were accordingly conducted by me in my laboratory at Prague, partly in conjunction with my son and partly afterwards by him alone. The latter are the most perfect and I shall accordingly speak in detail here of these only.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 51.]

Picture to yourself an apparatus for detecting optical striA set up in a dark room. In order not to make the description too complicated, I shall give the essential features only of the apparatus, leaving out of account altogether the minuter details which are rather of consequence for the technical performance of the experiment than for its understanding. We suppose the projectile speeding on its path, accordingly, through the field of our differential optical apparatus. On reaching the centre of the field (Fig. 51) the projectile disengages an illuminating electric spark a, and the image of the projectile, so produced, is photographically impressed upon the plate of the camera behind the intercepting slide b. In the last and best experiments the lens L was replaced by a spherical silvered-gla.s.s mirror made by K. Fritsch (formerly Prokesch) of Vienna, whereby the apparatus was naturally more complicated than it appears in our diagram. The projectile having been carefully aimed pa.s.ses in crossing the differential field between two vertical isolated wires which are connected with the two coatings of a Leyden jar, and completely filling the s.p.a.ce between the wires discharges the jar. In the axis of the differential apparatus the circuit has a second gap a which furnishes the illuminating spark, the image of which falls on the intercepting slide b. The wires in the differential field having occasioned manifold disturbances were subsequently done away with. In the new arrangement the projectile pa.s.ses through a ring (see dotted line, Fig. 51), to the air in which it imparts a sharp impulse which travels forward in the tube r as a sound-wave having the approximate velocity of 340 metres per second, topples over through the aperture of an electric screen the flame of a candle situated at the other opening of the tube, and so discharges the jar. The length of the tube r is so adjusted that the discharge occurs the moment the projectile enters the centre of the now fully clear and free field of vision. We will also leave out of account the fact that to secure fully the success of the experiment, a large jar is first discharged by the flame, and that by the agency of this first discharge the discharge of a second small jar having a spark of very short period which furnishes the spark really illuminating the projectile is effected. Sparks from large jars have an appreciable duration, and owing to the great velocity of the projectiles furnish blurred photographs only. By carefully husbanding the light of the differential apparatus, and owing to the fact that much more light reaches the photographic plate in this way than would otherwise reach it, we can obtain beautiful, strong, and sharp photographs with incredibly small sparks. The contours of the pictures appear as very delicate and very sharp, closely adjacent double lines. From their distance from one another, and from the velocity of the projectile, the duration of the illumination, or of the spark, is found to be 1/800000 of a second. It is evident, therefore, that experiments with mechanical snap slides can furnish no results worthy of the name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 52.]

Let us consider now first the picture of a projectile in the rough, as represented in Figure 52, and then let us examine it in its photographic form as seen in Figure 53. The latter picture is of a shot from an Austrian Mannlicher rifle. If I were not to tell you what the picture represented you would very likely imagine it to be a bird"s eye view of a boat b moving swiftly through the water. In front you see the bow-wave and behind the body a phenomenon k which closely resembles the eddies formed in the wake of a ship. And as a matter of fact the dark hyperboloid arc which streams from the tip of the projectile really is a compressed wave of air exactly a.n.a.logous to the bow-wave produced by a ship moving through the water, with the exception that the wave of air is not a surface-wave. The air-wave is produced in atmospheric s.p.a.ce and encompa.s.ses the projectile in the form of a sh.e.l.l on all sides. The wave is visible for the same reason that the heated sh.e.l.l of air surrounding the candle flame of our former experiments is visible. And the cylinder of friction-heated air which the projectile throws off in the form of vortex rings really does answer to the water in the wake of a vessel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 53. Photograph of a blunted projectile.]

Now just as a slowly moving boat produces no bow-wave, but the bow-wave is seen only when the boat moves with a speed which is greater than the velocity of propagation of surface-waves in water, so, in like manner, no wave of compression is visible in front of a projectile so long as the speed of the projectile is less than the velocity of sound. But if the speed of the projectile reaches and exceeds the velocity of sound, then the head-wave, as we shall call it, augments noticeably in power, and is more and more extended, that is, the angle made by the contours of the wave with the direction of flight is more and more diminished, just as when the speed of a boat is increased a similar phenomenon is noticed in connexion with the bow-wave. In fact, we can from an instantaneous photograph so taken approximately estimate the speed with which the projectile is travelling.

The explanation of the bow-wave of a ship and that of the head-wave of a body travelling in atmospheric s.p.a.ce both repose upon the same principle, long ago employed by Huygens. Conceive a number of pebbles to be cast into a pond of water at regular intervals in such wise that all the spots struck are situate in the same straight line, and that every spot subsequently struck lies a short s.p.a.ce farther to the right. The spots first struck will furnish then the wave-circles which are widest, and all of them together will, at the points where they are thickest, form a sort of cornucopia closely resembling the bow-wave. (Fig. 54.) The resemblance is greater the smaller the pebbles are, and the more quickly they succeed each other. If a rod be dipped into the water and quickly carried along its surface, the falling of the pebbles will then take place, so to speak, uninterruptedly, and we shall have a real bow-wave. If we put the compressed air-wave in the place of the surface-waves of the water, we shall have the head-wave of the projectile.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 54.]

You may be disposed to say now, it is all very pretty and interesting to observe a projectile in its flight, but of what practical use is it?

It is true, I reply, one cannot wage war with photographed projectiles. And I have likewise often had to say to medical students attending my lectures on physics, when they inquired for the practical value of some physical observation, "You cannot, gentlemen, cure diseases with it." I had also once to give my opinion regarding how much physics should be taught at a school for millers, supposing the instruction there to be confined exactly to what was necessary for a miller. I was obliged to reply: "A miller always needs exactly as much physics as he knows." Knowledge which one does not possess one cannot use.

Let us forego entirely the consideration that as a general thing every scientific advance, every new problem elucidated, every extension or enrichment of our knowledge of facts, affords a better foundation for practical pursuits. Let us rather put the special question, Is it not possible to derive some really practical knowledge from our theoretical acquaintance with the phenomena which take place in the s.p.a.ce surrounding a projectile?

No physicist who has ever studied waves of sound or photographed them will have the least doubt regarding the sound-wave character of the atmospheric condensation encompa.s.sing the head of a flying projectile. We have therefore, without ado, called this condensation the head-wave.

Knowing this, it follows that the view of Melsens according to which the projectile carries along with it ma.s.ses of air which it forces into the bodies struck, is untenable. A forward-moving sound-wave is not a forward-moving ma.s.s of matter but a forward-moving form of motion, just as a water-wave or the waves of a field of wheat are only forward-moving forms of motion and not movements of ma.s.ses of water or ma.s.ses of wheat.

By interference-experiments, on which I cannot touch here but which will be found roughly represented in Figure 55, it was found that the bell-shaped head-wave in question is an extremely thin sh.e.l.l and that the condensations of the same are quite moderate, scarcely exceeding two-tenths of an atmosphere. There can be no question, therefore, of explosive effects in the body struck by the projectile through so slight a degree of atmospheric compression. The phenomena attending wounds from rifle b.a.l.l.s, for example, are not to be explained as Melsens and Busch explain them, but are due, as Kocher and Reger maintain, to the effects of the impact of the projectile itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 55.]

A simple experiment will show how insignificant is the part played by the friction of the air, or the supposed conveyance of the air along with the moving projectile. If the photograph of the projectile be taken while pa.s.sing through a flame, i. e., a visible gas, the flame will be seen to be, not torn and deformed, but smoothly and cleanly perforated, like any solid body. Within and around the flame the contours of the head-wave will be seen. The flickering, the extinction of the flame, etc., take place only after the projectile has travelled on a considerable distance in its path, and is then affected by the powder gases which hurry after the bullet or by the air preceding the powder-gases.

The physicist who examines the head-wave and recognises its sound-wave character also sees that the wave in question is of the same kind with the short sharp waves produced by electric sparks, that it is a noise-wave. Hence, whenever any portion of the head-wave strikes the ear it will be heard as a report. Appearances point to the conclusion that the projectile carries this report along with it. In addition to this report, which advances with the velocity of the projectile and so usually travels at a speed greater than the velocity of sound, there is also to be heard the report of the exploding powder which travels forward with the ordinary velocity of sound. Hence two explosions will be heard, each distinct in time. The circ.u.mstance that this fact was long misconstrued by practical observers but when actually noticed frequently received grotesque explanations and that ultimately my view was accepted as the correct one, appears to me in itself a sufficient justification that researches such as we are here speaking of are not utterly superfluous even in practical directions. That the flashes and sounds of discharging artillery are used for estimating the distances of batteries is well known, and it stands to reason that any unclear theoretical conception of the facts here involved will seriously affect the correctness of practical calculations.

It may appear astonishing to a person hearing it for the first time, that a single shot has a double report due to two different velocities of propagation. But the reflexion that projectiles whose velocity is less than the velocity of sound produce no head-waves (because every impulse imparted to the air travels forward, that is, ahead, with exactly the velocity of sound), throws full light when logically developed upon the peculiar circ.u.mstance above mentioned. If the projectile moves faster than sound, the air ahead of it cannot recede from it quickly enough. The air is condensed and warmed, and thereupon, as all know, the velocity of sound is augmented until the head-wave travels forward as rapidly as the projectile itself, so that there is no need whatever of any additional augmentation of the velocity of propagation. If such a wave were left entirely to itself, it would increase in length and soon pa.s.s into an ordinary sound-wave, travelling with less velocity. But the projectile is always behind it and so maintains it at its proper density and velocity. Even if the projectile penetrates a piece of cardboard or a board of wood, which catches and obstructs the head-wave, there will, as Figure 56 shows, immediately appear at the emerging apex a newly formed, not to say newly born, head-wave. We may observe on the cardboard the reflexion and diffraction of the head-wave, and by means of a flame its refraction, so that no doubt as to its nature can remain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 56.]

Permit me, now, to ill.u.s.trate the most essential of the points that I have just adduced, by means of a few rough drawings taken from older and less perfect photographs.

In the sketch of Figure 57 you see the projectile, which has just left the barrel of the rifle, touch a wire and disengage the illuminating spark. At the apex of the projectile you already see the beginnings of a powerful head-wave, and in front of the wave a transparent fungiform cl.u.s.ter. This latter is the air which has been forced out of the barrel by the projectile. Circular sound-waves, noise-waves, which are soon overtaken by the projectile, also issue from the barrel. But behind the projectile opaque puffs of powder-gas rush forth. It is scarcely necessary to add that many other questions in ballistics may be studied by this method, as, for example, the movement of the gun-carriage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 57.]

A distinguished French artillerist, M. Gossot, has applied the views of the head-wave here given in quite a different manner. The practice in measuring the velocity of projectiles is to cause the projectile to pa.s.s through wire screens placed at different points in its path, and by the tearing of these screens to give rise to electro-magnetic time-signals on falling slabs or rotating drums. Gossot caused these signals to be made directly by the impact of the head-wave, did away thus with the wire screens, and carried the method so far as to be able to measure the velocities of projectiles travelling in high alt.i.tudes, where the use of wire screens was quite out of the question.

The laws of the resistance of fluids and of air to bodies travelling in them form an extremely complicated problem, which can be reasoned out very simply and prettily as a matter of pure philosophy but practice offers not a few difficulties. The same body having the velocity 2, 3, 4 ... displaces in the same interval 2, 3, 4 ... times the same ma.s.s of air, or the same ma.s.s of fluid, and imparts to it in addition 2, 3, 4 ... times the same velocity. But for this, plainly, 4, 9, 16 ... times the original force is required. Hence, the resistance, it is said, increases with the square of the velocity. This is all very pretty and simple and obvious. But practice and theory are at daggers" points here. Practice tells us that when we increase the velocity, the law of the resistance changes. For every portion of the velocity the law is different.

The studies of the talented English naval architect, Froude, have thrown light upon this question. Froude has shown that the resistance is conditioned by a combination of the most multifarious phenomena. A ship in motion is subjected to the friction of the water. It causes eddies and it generates in addition waves which radiate outward from it. Every one of these phenomena are dependent upon the velocity in some different manner, and it is consequently not astonishing that the law of the resistance should be a complicated one.

The preceding observations suggest quite a.n.a.logous reflexions for projectiles. Here also we have friction, the formation of eddies, and the generation of waves. Here, also, therefore, we should not be surprised at finding the law of the resistance of the air a complicated one, nor puzzled at learning that in actuality the law of resistance changes as soon as the speed of the projectile exceeds the velocity of sound, for this is the precise point at which one important element of the resistance, namely, the formation of waves, first comes into play.

No one doubts that a pointed bullet pierces the air with less resistance than a blunt bullet. The photographs themselves show that the head-wave is weaker for a pointed projectile. It is not impossible, similarly, that forms of bullets will be invented which generate fewer eddies, etc., and that we shall study these phenomena also by photography. I am of opinion from the few experiments which I have made in this direction that not much more can be done by changing the form of the projectile when the velocity is very great, but I have not gone into the question thoroughly. Researches of the kind we are considering can certainly not be detrimental to practical artillery, and it is no less certain that experiments by artillerists on a large scale will be of undoubted benefit to physics.

No one who has had the opportunity of studying modern guns and projectiles in their marvellous perfection, their power and precision, can help confessing that a high technical and scientific achievement has found its incarnation in these objects. We may surrender ourselves so completely to this impression as to forget for a moment the terrible purposes they serve.

Permit me, therefore, before we separate, to say a few words on this glaring contrast. The greatest man of war and of silence which the present age has produced once a.s.serted that perpetual peace is a dream, and not a beautiful dream at that. We may accord to this profound student of mankind a judgment in these matters and can also appreciate the soldier"s horror of stagnation from all too lengthy peace. But it requires a strong belief in the insuperableness of mediAval barbarism to hope for and to expect no great improvement in international relations. Think of our forefathers and of the times when club law ruled supreme, when within the same country and the same state brutal a.s.saults and equally brutal self-defence were universal and self-evident. This state of affairs grew so oppressive that finally a thousand and one circ.u.mstances compelled people to put an end to it, and the cannon had most to say in accomplishing the work. Yet the rule of club law was not abolished so quickly after all. It had simply pa.s.sed to other clubs. We must not abandon ourselves to dreams of the Rousseau type. Questions of law will in a sense forever remain questions of might. Even in the United States where every one is as a matter of principle ent.i.tled to the same privileges, the ballot according to Stallo"s pertinent remark is but a milder subst.i.tute for the club. Nor need I tell you that many of our own fellow-citizens are still enamored of the old original methods. Very, very gradually, however, as civilisation progresses, the intercourse of men takes on gentler forms, and no one who really knows the good old times will ever honestly wish them back again, however beautifully they may be painted and rhymed about.

In the intercourse of the nations, however, the old club law still reigns supreme. But since its rule is taxing the intellectual, the moral, and the material resources of the nations to the utmost and const.i.tutes scarcely less a burden in peace than in war, scarcely less a yoke for the victor than for the vanquished, it must necessarily grow more and more unendurable. Reason, fortunately, is no longer the exclusive possession of those who modestly call themselves the upper ten thousand. Here, as everywhere, the evil itself will awaken the intellectual and ethical forces which are destined to mitigate it. Let the hate of races and of nationalities run riot as it may, the intercourse of nations will still increase and grow more intimate. By the side of the problems which separate nations, the great and common ideals which claim the exclusive powers of the men of the future appear one after another in greater distinctness and in greater might.

FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 110: A lecture delivered on Nov. 10, 1897.]

[Footnote 111: Christiansen, Wiedemann"s Annalen, XXIII. S. 298, XXIV., p. 439 (1884-1885).]

[Footnote 112: The German phrase is Schlierenmethode, by which term the method is known even by American physicists. It is also called in English the "shadow-method." But a term is necessary which will cover all the derivatives, and so we have employed alternatively the words striate and differential. The etymology of schlieren, it would seem, is uncertain. Its present use is derived from its technological signification in gla.s.s-manufacturing, where by die Schlieren are meant the wavy streaks and imperfections in gla.s.s. Hence its application to the method for detecting small optical differences and faults generally. Professor Crew of Evanston suggests to the translator that schlieren may be related to our slur (L. G., slAren, to trail, to draggle), a conjecture which is doubtless correct and agrees both with the meaning of schlieren as given in the large German dictionaries and with the intransitive use of our own verb slur, the faults in question being conceived as "trailings," "streakings," etc.--Trans.]

ON INSTRUCTION IN THE CLa.s.sICS AND THE SCIENCES.[113]

Perhaps the most fantastic proposition that Maupertuis,[114] the renowned president of the Berlin Academy, ever put forward for the approval of his contemporaries was that of founding a city in which, to instruct and discipline young students, only Latin should be spoken. Maupertuis"s Latin city remained an idle wish. But for centuries Latin and Greek inst.i.tutions exist in which our children spend a goodly portion of their days, and whose atmosphere constantly surrounds them, even when without their walls.

For centuries instruction in the ancient languages has been zealously cultivated. For centuries its necessity has been alternately championed and contested. More strongly than ever are authoritative voices now raised against the preponderance of instruction in the cla.s.sics and in favor of an education more suited to the needs of the time, especially for a more generous treatment of mathematics and the natural sciences.

In accepting your invitation to speak here on the relative educational value of the cla.s.sical and the mathematico-physical sciences in colleges and high schools, I find my justification in the duty and the necessity laid upon every teacher of forming from his own experiences an opinion upon this important question, as partly also in the special circ.u.mstance that in my youth I was personally under the influence of school-life for only a short time, just previous to my entering the university, and had, therefore, ample opportunity to observe the effects of widely different methods upon my own person.

Pa.s.sing now, to a review of the arguments which the advocates of instruction in the cla.s.sics advance, and of what the adherents of instruction in the physical sciences in their turn adduce, we find ourselves in rather a perplexing position with respect to the arguments of the first named. For these have been different at different times, and they are even now of a very multifarious character, as must be where men advance, in favor of an inst.i.tution that exists and which they are determined to retain at any cost, everything they can possibly think of. We shall find here much that has evidently been brought forward only to impress the minds of the ignorant; much, too, that was advanced in good faith and which is not wholly without foundation. We shall get a fair idea of the reasoning employed by considering, first, the arguments that have grown out of the historical circ.u.mstances connected with the original introduction of the cla.s.sics, and, lastly, those which were subsequently adduced as accidental afterthoughts.

Instruction in Latin, as Paulsen[115] has minutely shown, was introduced by the Roman Church along with Christianity. With the Latin language were also transmitted the scant and meagre remnants of ancient science. Whoever wished to acquire this ancient education, then the only one worthy of the name, for him the Latin language was the only and indispensable means; such a person had to learn Latin to rank among educated people.

The wide-spread influence of the Roman Church wrought many and various results. Among those for which all are glad, we may safely count the establishment of a sort of uniformity among the nations and of a regular international intercourse by means of the Latin language, which did much to unite the nations in the common work of civilisation, carried on from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The Latin language was thus long the language of scholars, and instruction in Latin the road to a liberal education--a shibboleth still employed, though long inappropriate.

For scholars as a cla.s.s, it is to be regretted, perhaps, that Latin has ceased to be the medium of international communication. But the attributing of the loss of this function by the Latin language to its incapacity to accommodate itself to the numerous new ideas and conceptions which have arisen in the course of the development of science is, in my opinion, wholly erroneous. It would be difficult to find a modern scientist who had enriched science with as many new ideas as Newton has, yet Newton knew how to express those ideas very correctly and precisely in the Latin language. If this view were correct, it would also hold true of every living language. Originally every language has to adapt itself to new ideas.

It is far more likely that Latin was displaced as the literary vehicle of science by the influence of the n.o.bility. By their desire to enjoy the fruits of literature and science, through a less irksome medium than Latin, the n.o.bility performed for the people at large an undeniable service. For the days were now past when acquaintance with the language and literature of science was restricted to a caste, and in this step, perhaps, was made the most important advance of modern times. To-day, when international intercourse is firmly established in spite of the many languages employed, no one would think of reintroducing Latin.[116]

The facility with which the ancient languages lend themselves to the expression of new ideas is evidenced by the fact that the great majority of our scientific ideas, as survivals of this period of Latin intercourse, bear Latin and Greek designations, while in great measure scientific ideas are even now invested with names from these sources. But to deduce from the existence and use of such terms the necessity of still learning Latin and Greek on the part of all who employ them is carrying the conclusion too far. All terms, appropriate and inappropriate,--and there are a large number of inappropriate and monstrous combinations in science,--rest on convention. The essential thing is, that people should a.s.sociate with the sign the precise idea that is designated by it. It matters little whether a person can correctly derive the words telegraph, tangent, ellipse, evolute, etc., if the correct idea is present in his mind when he uses them. On the other hand, no matter how well he may know their etymology, his knowledge will be of little use to him if the correct idea is absent. Ask the average and fairly educated cla.s.sical scholar to translate a few lines for you from Newton"s Principia, or from Huygens"s Horologium, and you will discover at once what an extremely subordinate rAle the mere knowledge of language plays in such things. Without its a.s.sociated thought a word remains a mere sound. The fashion of employing Greek and Latin designations--for it can be termed nothing else--has a natural root in history; it is impossible for the practice to disappear suddenly, but it has fallen of late considerably into disuse. The terms gas, ohm, AmpAre, volt, etc., are in international use, but they are not Latin nor Greek. Only the person who rates the unessential and accidental husk higher than its contents, can speak of the necessity of learning Latin or Greek for such reasons, to say nothing of spending eight or ten years on the task. Will not a dictionary supply in a few seconds all the information we wish on such subjects?[117]

It is indisputable that our modern civilisation took up the threads of the ancient civilisation, that at many points it begins where the latter left off, and that centuries ago the remains of the ancient culture were the only culture existing in Europe. Then, of course, a cla.s.sical education really was the liberal education, the higher education, the ideal education, for it was the sole education. But when the same claim is now raised in behalf of a cla.s.sical education, it must be uncompromisingly contested as bereft of all foundation. For our civilisation has gradually attained its independence; it has lifted itself far above the ancient civilisation, and has entered generally new directions of progress. Its note, its characteristic feature, is the enlightenment that has come from the great mathematical and physical researches of the last centuries, and which has permeated not only the practical arts and industries but is also gradually finding its way into all fields of thought, including philosophy and history, sociology and linguistics. Those traces of ancient views that are still discoverable in philosophy, law, art, and science, operate more as hindrances than helps, and will not long stand before the development of independent and more natural views.

It ill becomes cla.s.sical scholars, therefore, to regard themselves, at this day, as the educated cla.s.s par excellence, to condemn as uneducated all persons who do not understand Latin and Greek, to complain that with such people profitable conversations are not to be carried on, etc. The most delectable stories have got into circulation, ill.u.s.trative of the defective education of scientists and engineers. A renowned inquirer, for example, is said to have once announced his intention of holding a free course of university lectures, with the word "frustra"; an engineer who spent his leisure hours in collecting insects is said to have declared that he was studying "etymology." It is true, incidents of this character make us shudder or smile, according to our mood or temperament. But we must admit, the next moment, that in giving way to such feelings we have merely succ.u.mbed to a childish prejudice. A lack of tact but certainly no lack of education is displayed in the use of such half-understood expressions. Every candid person will confess that there are many branches of knowledge about which he had better be silent. We shall not be so uncharitable as to turn the tables and discuss the impression that cla.s.sical scholars might make on a scientist or engineer, in speaking of science. Possibly many ludicrous stories might be told of them, and of far more serious import, which should fully compensate for the blunders of the other party.

The mutual severity of judgment which we have here come upon, may also forcibly bring home to us how really scarce a true liberal culture is. We may detect in this mutual att.i.tude, too, something of that narrow, mediAval arrogance of caste, where a man began, according to the special point of view of the speaker, with the scholar, the soldier, or the n.o.bleman. Little sense or appreciation is to be found in it for the common task of humanity, little feeling for the need of mutual a.s.sistance in the great work of civilisation, little breadth of mind, little truly liberal culture.

A knowledge of Latin, and partly, also, a knowledge of Greek, is still a necessity for the members of a few professions by nature more or less directly concerned with the civilisations of antiquity, as for lawyers, theologians, philologists, historians, and generally for a small number of persons, among whom from time to time I count myself, who are compelled to seek for information in the Latin literature of the centuries just past.[118] But that all young persons in search of a higher education should pursue for this reason Latin and Greek to such excess; that persons intending to become physicians and scientists should come to the universities defectively educated, or even miseducated; and that they should be compelled to come only from schools that do not supply them with the proper preparatory knowledge is going a little bit too far.

After the conditions which had given to the study of Latin and Greek their high import had ceased to exist, the traditional curriculum, naturally, was retained. Then, the different effects of this method of education, good and bad, which no one had thought of at its introduction, were realised and noted. As natural, too, was it that those who had strong interests in the preservation of these studies, from knowing no others or from living by them, or for still other reasons, should emphasise the good results of such instruction. They pointed to the good effects as if they had been consciously aimed at by the method and could be attained only through its agency.

One real benefit that students might derive from a rightly conducted course in the cla.s.sics would be the opening up of the rich literary treasures of antiquity, and intimacy with the conceptions and views of the world held by two advanced nations. A person who has read and understood the Greek and Roman authors has felt and experienced more than one who is restricted to the impressions of the present. He sees how men placed in different circ.u.mstances judge quite differently of the same things from what we do to-day. His own judgments will be rendered thus more independent. Again, the Greek and Latin authors are indisputably a rich fountain of recreation, of enlightenment, and of intellectual pleasure after the day"s toil, and the individual, not less than civilised humanity generally, will remain grateful to them for all time. Who does not recall with pleasure the wanderings of Ulysses, who does not listen joyfully to the simple narratives of Herodotus, who would ever repent of having made the acquaintance of Plato"s Dialogues, or of having tasted Lucian"s divine humor? Who would give up the glances he has obtained into the private life of antiquity from Cicero"s letters, from Plautus or Terence? To whom are not the portraits of Suetonius undying reminiscences? Who, in fact, would throw away any knowledge he had once gained?

Yet people who draw from these sources only, who know only this culture, have surely no right to dogmatise about the value of some other culture. As objects of research for individuals, this literature is extremely valuable, but it is a different question whether it is equally valuable as the almost exclusive means of education of our youth.

Do not other nations and other literatures exist from which we ought to learn? Is not nature herself our first school-mistress? Are our highest models always to be the Greeks, with their narrow provinciality of mind, that divided the world into "Greeks and barbarians," with their superst.i.tions, with their eternal questioning of oracles? Aristotle with his incapacity to learn from facts, with his word-science; Plato with his heavy, interminable dialogues, with his barren, at times childish, dialectics--are they unsurpa.s.sable?[119] The Romans with their apathy, their pompous externality, set off by fulsome and bombastic phrases, with their narrow-minded, philistine philosophy, with their frenzied sensuality, with their cruel and b.e.s.t.i.a.l indulgence in animal and man baiting, with their outrageous maltreatment and plundering of their subjects--are they patterns worthy of imitation? Or shall, perhaps, our science edify itself with the works of Pliny who cites midwives as authorities and himself stands on their point of view?

Besides, if an acquaintance with the ancient world really were attained, we might come to some settlement with the advocates of cla.s.sical education. But it is words and forms, and forms and words only, that are supplied to our youth; and even collateral subjects are forced into the strait-jacket of the same rigid method and made a science of words, sheer feats of mechanical memory. Really, we feel ourselves set back a thousand years into the dull cloister-cells of the Middle Ages.

This must be changed. It is possible to get acquainted with the views of the Greeks and Romans by a shorter road than the intellect deadening process of eight or ten years of declining, conjugating, a.n.a.lysing, and extemporisation. There are to-day plenty of educated persons who have acquired through good translations vivider, clearer, and more just views of cla.s.sical antiquity than the graduates of our gymnasiums and colleges.[120]

For us moderns, the Greeks and the Romans are simply two objects of archAological and historical research like all others. If we put them before our youth in fresh and living pictures, and not merely in words and syllables, the effect will be a.s.sured. We derive a totally different enjoyment from the Greeks when we approach them after a study of the results of modern research in the history of civilisation. We read many a chapter of Herodotus differently when we attack his works equipped with a knowledge of natural science, and with information about the stone age and the lake-dwellers. What our cla.s.sical inst.i.tutions pretend to give can and actually will be given to our youth with much more fruitful results by competent historical instruction, which must supply, not names and numbers alone, nor the mere history of dynasties and wars, but be in every sense of the word a true history of civilisation.

The view still widely prevails that although all "higher, ideal culture," all extension of our view of the world, is acquired by philological and in a lesser degree by historical studies, still the mathematics and natural sciences should not be neglected on account of their usefulness. This is an opinion to which I must refuse my a.s.sent. It were strange if man could learn more, could draw more intellectual nourishment, from the shards of a few old broken jugs, from inscribed stones, or yellow parchments, than from all the rest of nature. True, man is man"s first concern, but he is not his sole concern.

In ceasing to regard man as the centre of the world; in discovering that the earth is a top whirled about the sun, which speeds off with it into infinite s.p.a.ce; in finding that in the fixed stars the same elements exist as on earth; in meeting everywhere the same processes of which the life of man is merely a vanishingly small part--in such things, too, is a widening of our view of the world, and edification, and poetry. There are here perhaps grander and more significant facts than the bellowing of the wounded Ares, or the charming island of Calypso, or the ocean-stream engirdling the earth. He only should speak of the relative value of these two domains of thought, of their poetry, who knows both.

The "utility" of physical science is, in a measure, only a collateral product of that flight of the intellect which produced science. No one, however, should underrate the utility of science who has shared in the realisation by modern industrial art of the Oriental world of fables, much less one upon whom those treasures have been poured, as it were, from the fourth dimension, without his aid or understanding.

Nor may we believe that science is useful only to the practical man. Its influence permeates all our affairs, our whole life; everywhere its ideas are decisive. How differently does the jurist, the legislator, or the political economist think, who knows, for example, that a square mile of the most fertile soil can support with the solar heat annually consumed only a definite number of human beings, which no art or science can increase. Many economical theories, which open new air-paths of progress, air-paths in the literal sense of the word, would be made impossible by such knowledge.

The eulogists of cla.s.sical education love to emphasise the cultivation of taste which comes from employment with the ancient models. I candidly confess that there is something absolutely revolting in this to me. To form the taste, then, our youths must sacrifice ten years of their life! Luxury takes precedence over necessity. Have the future generations, in the face of the difficult problems, the great social questions, which they must meet, and that with strengthened mind and heart, no more important duties to fulfil than these?

But let us a.s.sume that this end were desirable. Can taste be formed by rules and precepts? Do not ideals of beauty change? Is it not a stupendous absurdity to force one"s self artificially to admire things which, with all their historical interest, with all their beauty in individual points, are for the most part foreign to the rest of our thoughts and feelings, provided we have such of our own. A nation that is truly such, has its own taste and will not go to others for it. And every individual perfect man has his own taste.[121]

And what, after all, does this cultivation of taste consist in? In the acquisition of the personal literary style of a few select authors! What should we think of a people that would force its youth a thousand years from now, by years of practice, to master the tortuous or bombastic style of some successful lawyer or politician of to-day? Should we not justly accuse them of a woful lack of taste?

The evil effects of this imagined cultivation of the taste find expression often enough. The young savant who regards the composition of a scientific essay as a rhetorical exercise instead of a simple and unadorned presentation of the facts and the truth, still sits unconsciously on the school-bench, and still unwittingly represents the point of view of the Romans, by whom the elaboration of speeches was regarded as a serious scientific (!) employment.

Far be it from me to underrate the value of the development of the instinct of speech and of the increased comprehension of our own language which comes from philological studies. By the study of a foreign language, especially of one which differs widely from ours, the signs and forms of words are first clearly distinguished from the thoughts which they express. Words of the closest possible correspondence in different languages never coincide absolutely with the ideas they stand for, but place in relief slightly different aspects of the same thing, and by the study of language the attention is directed to these shades of difference. But it would be far from admissible to contend that the study of Latin and Greek is the most fruitful and natural, let alone the only, means of attaining this end. Any one who will give himself the pleasure of a few hours" companionship with a Chinese grammar; who will seek to make clear to himself the mode of speech and thought of a people who never advanced as far as the a.n.a.lysis of articulate sounds, but stopped at the a.n.a.lysis of syllables, to whom our alphabetical characters, therefore, are an inexplicable puzzle, and who express all their rich and profound thoughts by means of a few syllables with variable emphasis and position,--such a person, perhaps, will acquire new, and extremely elucidative ideas upon the relation of language and thought. But should our children, therefore, study Chinese? Certainly not. No more, then, should they be burdened with Latin, at least in the measure they are.

It is a beautiful achievement to reproduce a Latin thought in a modern language with the maximum fidelity of meaning and expression--for the translator. Moreover, we shall be very grateful to the translator for his performance. But to demand this feat of every educated man, without consideration of the sacrifice of time and labor which it entails, is unreasonable. And for this very reason, as cla.s.sical teachers admit, that ideal is never perfectly attained, except in rare cases with scholars possessed of special talents and great industry. Without slurring, therefore, the high importance of the study of the ancient languages as a profession, we may yet feel sure that the instinct for speech which is part of every liberal education can, and must, be acquired in a different way. Should we, indeed, be forever lost if the Greeks had not lived before us?

The fact is, we must carry our demands further than the representatives of cla.s.sical philology. We must ask of every educated man a fair scientific conception of the nature and value of language, of the formation of language, of the alteration of the meaning of roots, of the degeneration of fixed forms of speech to grammatical forms, in brief, of all the main results of modern comparative philology. We should judge that this were attainable by a careful study of our mother tongue and of the languages next allied to it, and subsequently of the more ancient tongues from which the former are derived. If any one object that this is too difficult and entails too much labor, I should advise such a person to place side by side an English, a Dutch, a Danish, a Swedish, and a German Bible, and to compare a few lines of them; he will be amazed at the mult.i.tude of suggestions that offer themselves.[122] In fact, I believe that a really progressive, fruitful, rational, and instructive study of languages can be conducted only on this plan. Many of my audience will remember, perhaps, the bright and encouraging effect, like that of a ray of sunlight on a gloomy day, which the meagre and furtive remarks on comparative philology in Curtius"s Greek grammar wrought in that barren and lifeless desert of verbal quibbles.

The princ.i.p.al result obtained by the present method of studying the ancient languages is that which comes from the student"s employment with their complicated grammars. It consists in the sharpening of the attention and in the exercise of the judgment by the practice of subsuming special cases under general rules, and of distinguishing between different cases. Obviously, the same result can be reached by many other methods; for example, by difficult games of cards. Every science, the mathematics and the physical sciences included, accomplish as much, if not more, in this disciplining of the judgment. In addition, the matter treated by those sciences has a much higher intrinsic interest for young people, and so engages spontaneously their attention; while on the other hand they are elucidative and useful in other directions in which grammar can accomplish nothing.

Who cares, so far as the matter of it is concerned, whether we say hominum or hominorum in the genitive plural, interesting as the fact may be for the philologist? And who would dispute that the intellectual need of causal insight is awakened not by grammar but by the natural sciences?

It is not our intention, therefore, to gainsay in the least the good influence which the study of Latin and Greek grammar also exercises on the sharpening of the judgment. In so far as the study of words as such must greatly promote lucidity and accuracy of expression, in so far as Latin and Greek are not yet wholly indispensable to many branches of knowledge, we willingly concede to them a place in our schools, but would demand that the disproportionate amount of time allotted to them, wrongly withdrawn from other useful studies, should be considerably curtailed. That in the end Latin and Greek will not be employed as the universal means of education, we are fully convinced. They will be relegated to the closet of the scholar or professional philologist, and gradually make way for the modern languages and the modern science of language.

Long ago Locke reduced to their proper limits the exaggerated notions which obtained of the close connexion of thought and speech, of logic and grammar, and recent investigators have established on still surer foundations his views. How little a complicated grammar is necessary for expressing delicate shades of thought is demonstrated by the Italians and French, who, although they have almost totally discarded the grammatical redundancies of the Romans, are yet not surpa.s.sed by the latter in accuracy of thought, and whose poetical, but especially whose scientific literature, as no one will dispute, can bear favorable comparison with the Roman.

Reviewing again the arguments advanced in favor of the study of the ancient languages, we are obliged to say that in the main and as applied to the present, they are wholly devoid of force. In so far as the aims which this study theoretically pursues are still worthy of attainment, they appear to us as altogether too narrow, and are surpa.s.sed in this only by the means employed. As almost the sole, indisputable result of this study we must count the increase of the student"s skill and precision in expression. One inclined to be uncharitable might say that our gymnasiums and cla.s.sical academies turn out men who can speak and write, but, unfortunately, have little to write or speak about. Of that broad, liberal view, of that famed universal culture, which th

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