"HAPPY WARRIOR."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 16

"HAPPY WARRIOR."

TRIBUTE TO RUTHERFORD. SIR JAMES JEANS' ADDRESS. A striking tribute to the late Lord Rutherford was paid by Sir Jamee Jeans, the eminent astronomer, in an introductory address at the jubilee meeting of the* Indian Science Congress Association, held in Calcutta. Sir James said that those who were honoured by Lord Rutherford's friendship knew that his greatness as a scientist was matched by his greatness as a man. "We remember and always shall remember with affection his big, energetic, exuberant personality, the simplicity, sincerity and transparent honesty of his character, and, perhaps most of all, his geniue for friendship and good comradeship. Honours of every con-

ceivable kind had been showered upon him, so that he could not but know of the esteem in which he was held by the whole world, and yet he was always simple, unassuming and ready to listen patiently to even the youngest and most inexperienced of his pupils or fellowworkers, if only he were honestly seeking for scientific truth." Sir James said that he considered that great though Faraday's output of work was, it seemed to him necessary to go back to Newton to match Rutherford's work in quantity as well a<& quality. He remarked that, "Voltaire once said that Xcwton was more fortunate than any other scientist could ever be, since it could fall to only one man to discover the laws which governed the universe. Had he lived in a later age he miglit have said something similar of Rutherford and the realm of the infinitely small; for Rutherford was the Newton of atomic physics. "In some respects he was more fortunate than Xewton; there was nothing in Rutherford's life to compare with the

rears which Newton spent in a vain search for the philosopher's stone, or with Newton's output of misleading optical theories, or with his bitter quarrels with hjs- contemporaries. Hutherford was ever the happy warrior —happy in his work, happy in its outcome, and happy in its human contacts."