OBITUARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21932, 16 October 1934, Page 9

OBITUARY

SIR ARTHUR SCHUSTER GERMAN-BORN SCIENTIST LONDON, Oct. 14 The death has occurred of Professor Sir Arthur Schuster, aged 83, a noted German-born scientist. Of late he had been connected with the International Research Council. The late Professor Sir Arthur Schuster was born at Frankfort-on-Main on September 12, 1851, and educated there, and later at Genener, Manchester and Heidelburg. His university career was brilliant and was crowned by honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester. His long life was devoted to scientific research. Sir Arthur was secretary of the Royal Society, 1912-19, and its foreign secretary, 1920-24. He was the author of " The Theory of Optics " and " The Progress of Physics," and he contributed papers to philosophical transactions and magazines. Although he was born in Germany, Sir Arthur and his family have been naturalised British subjects for over a century, and several of its members have won distinguished positions in England. As a young man Sir Arthur specialised in spectrum analysis which was then in its infancy, and at 24, although not a member of the Royal Society, it appointed him chief of its Eclipse expedition to Siam, the constitution of the sun being then the great astronomical problem. Later, Sir Arthur became professor of applied mathematics and then of physics in the University of Manchester, resigning the latter appointment to go to London on being elected secretary of the Royal Society in 1913. It was through Sir Arthur's instrumentality that Senatore Marconi, as a young man, got into contact with Sir William Preece, and was able to develop the wireless experiments which have immortalised his name.