PROFESSOR BICKERTON

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7847, 8 July 1911, Page 1

PROFESSOR BICKERTON

AN APPRECIATION PRAISE FOB THE NEW ZEALAND scientist. MEMORIES OF FORTY YEARS AGO. rilOM our. BPECIAU COIUIESPONDEMT. LONDON, May 26. ■ An appreciation of Professor Dickerton, of cosmic impact fame, fiom the pen of ono who knew him intimately forty years ago, appears in the Cheltenham “Chronicle.” “In his pre-scientifio days,” writes Mr Arthur G. Mceze, “if such a term cun be applied to ono who came into tais world organically scientific from h.s brain to his linger tips, Professor iiickerton was a prominent Painswick 'citizen, a small tmllowner, and ultramgonious mechanician with almost uncanny powers of invention. At that time ho was a-p»oneer of industry and. inventor of various types of woodworking machinery that, have since made rortuues tor a few later ‘discoverers’ and a comfortable living for taoosanus. There arc many Painswick uousca mat conta.n to t-nis nour xurmtnro made by ms primitive paint. “THIS MAN OF UJUNIUa.”

“In those'days,” Mr JMceze goes on to say, "xie taugut me to icon cuulicleutiy ronvard to a time when alt men autre would sod. tno uivisioio ana iiave no interests, but Truth with a capital "T” 1 That expected millennium nas not yet arrived, ana wiled'it aoes come i can oiuy uopo tuat mere may bo someone aoout to ;v-ail me Early.' For tmrty, at least, out ot tbe forty oda years l bare Known tins man or genius i nave almost despairingly watcnea tne deepening trageay of ms efforts to get nis great discoveries recognised, but right. across nis path has lain ’the wreckage of ‘progress’ , educated ignorance, ■ personal and rival interests, intellectual supineness, mental inertia, Ecieutrnc prostitution, industrial pot-boil‘ng,, and the stxluct ons of the human ‘struggle to die' under the iliu-. siou that it is ‘the way ot life.’ There is something sublime in the,.war he has. persistently waged aginit-tho superciliousness of self-styled authorities and the stone-deafness of real coc petence. fie has: had the humour to take himself seriously and to fight with, singleness of purpose for the world’s awakening when a less heroic spirit, would have relieved the strain with a flood of vigorous profanity or ■ contemptuously, revenged itself by persona) adaption to the willing ignorance of others at a profit.” “CONSPIRACY OF SILENCEV” Mr Harry Lowerison, in the “Clarion” or last Friday, devotes two columns and a hair to Professor Bickerton and his tneory of tne Jiirtn of worlds. After pointing out that orthodox astronomers do not and can-' not explain tho or.gin of new stars, or account for the puenoneua observed at their birth, ho goes on to ask: “Why, then, do they not accept, at least as a working Hypothesis, the fjickertoman theory that explains all the facts! 1 I have not had time since reading Professor Bickerton’s hcok to refer to all my books on astronomy, but I do not remember ever reading his name, and I cannot find Bickercon in all their indices. Backiand, Ball, Barnard, Belopolsky, .Basse!, Bradley, Biela, Biot, Bode, Bond, and so on, but no Bickerton. If the theory bo demonstrately false, lot the astronomers demonstrate' it. It has been before the public now for over thirty years, and X, a keen inquirer, have never even heard of it till the other day. Why this conspiracy of silence? Can it be that Professor Bickerton, whose theory, if true, places him alongside Copernicus and Kepler and N ewton, is not a University man? Or is it that he is a Soc btoady! If they are objecting to him because he is not a ’Varsity man, and they learn this second fact, it will absolutely and finally damn him. Astronomers have not accepted the theory. They have turned their backs on it. . “It is an amazing world.” SIE GEORGE GREY’S FORESIGHT. “Probably the man who comes best out of this marvellous business is Sir George Grey who, when Premier of Mew Zealand, where Bickerton then lived, had tho original papers printed by Government. Shortly before bis death bo wrote that, in case of plagarism he bad filed Bickerton’s papers, properly dated, in tho Auckland Library-” . . _ ■ The “Clarion,” reviewing Professor Bickerton’s new book, describes it as “one of the most daring and wonderful speculations in star-lore ever given to the world. A mere ‘colonial’ has had tbe effrontery to put Cambridge and Oxford right. ... If, as seems probable, the theory bo proved true, first editions of this book will be worth in future many times their weight in gold.”