PROFESSOR BICKERTON.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 118, 11 July 1911, Page 2

PROFESSOR BICKERTON.

THE PARTIAL IMPACT THEORY. A London correspondent writes iUi appreciation of Professor JJickcrton, or cosmic impact fame, from tne pen of one who Knew him intimately forty years ago ,appears in the Eneitenham ‘ ‘Chi omcle.'' _"fn Jus pre-scienthic days,” writes Mr. Arthur C. iVleose, “it such a tm m can be applied to one wiio came into tins world arganically scientific from ins brain to ins finger tips, i'iofossur Ricker ton was a prominent J dins wick citizen, a small mill-owner, and ultra-ingenious mechanician with almost uncanny powers of invention. At that time no was a pioneer of industry and inventor ol various types of wood-working machinery that nave since made fortunes for a few later ‘discoverers’ and a comfortable living lor thousands. There are many Painskjck louses that contain to this him furniture made by his primitive plant. ■ “ This Mt. n of Genius.”

In those days, - ’ Air. Aleeze goes on to say, -‘lie taught me to look tonnacutiy ior ward to a time., when all men auke would see the mvisiuie ana iia\o no interests, Out Iruth with a capital “i !' That expected millemum lias not yet arrived, and when it does come I can only hope that there may be someone about to ‘Cali me early/ lor that;/, at least, out of the fe-dy oda years 1 have known this man or gen.us. ! have almost despair* rely " ntehed the. deepening trageay of hm cltoits to get nis great discoveries i -cognised ,uut light across ins path nas jam the ' wreckage of ‘progress'’ educated -ignorance, ' personal and rival interests, intellectual supihciioss, mental inertia, sciontilic prostitution’ industrial pot-h.oiling, aim the seductions of tlie Ini man ‘struggle to oie J under the illusion that it is'Hhe way ol hie.' There is something sublime m the war he lias persistently waged against the superciliousness of soitsiy led authorities and the stone-deaf-imss of real competence. He has had the humour to take himself seriously and to light with singleness of pm pose lor tile ivorhhs aivakeninp' >vrmn a Jess heroic spirit would nave relieved the -strain with a' fihod or vigorous profanity or contemptuously revenged itself by personal- adaption to the willing ignorance of others at a profit.” “Conspiracy of Silence.”

Mr. Harry Lowerisou, in the “CJar--1011 hist i*nday, devotes tiro cotimuis and a Half to -Professor JJickG),r ( >ii and ids theory ot tiie Birth or VV oj'lds. Alter pointing out that orthodox astronomers do not and cannot explain the origin of new stars, 01 account tor the pnenomena observed at their birth, he goes on to ask: Aliy, then, do they not accept, at least as a working hypothesis, trie Picket toiiian theory tnar explains ail the facts t “1 have not had time since reading Professor Bickerton’s he ok to rolei to all my hooks on astionomy, but i do not romemoer ever reading ids name, and I cannot find Bickerton in ail their indices. Backland, Bali, Barnard, Belopolsky, Bash'd, Bradley, Biela, Biot, Bode, Bond, and so on, but no Bickerton. If the tjicoiy be demonstrately false, let the astronomers demonstrate it. It has be<-n before the public now for over thirty years, and 1, a keen enquirer, have never even heard of it till the ether day 7. Why this conspiracy 7 of silence? Can it be that Professor Bickerton, whoso theory 7, if true, places him alongside Copernicus and Kepler and Aov> ton, is not a University man? Or i.; it that he is a woe Steady ! If they arc objecting to him because he is not a ’Varsity man, and they learn this second fact, it will absolutely 7 and dually damn him. Astronomers have not accepted the theory 7. They mu e turned their backs on it.

“it,is an amazing world.” Sir George Grey's Foresight. “Probably the man who comes best out of this marvellous .business is Sir George Grey 7, who, when Premier of Now Zealand, where Bickerton then lived, bad the original papers printed by Government. Shortly before iris death lie wrote that, in case of plagiarism he had filed Bicker ton's paper s, properly dated, in the Auckland Library 7.” 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’ i.ns had the effrontery 7 to put Cambridge and Oxford right. . . If. as F.ccnm ’probable, the theory 7 he proved true, first editions of this book will be worth in future many times their weight in gold.’