100 YEARS AGO

The performances of the submarine vessel, Gustave Zédé, appear to have given much satisfaction to naval experts on the other side of the Channel, though our own engineering papers are by no means impressed by the experiments. We learn from the Times that the semi-official Moniteur de la Flotte, commenting upon the trials of the Gustave Zédé, says that at length, after twelve years of continued efforts, the problem has been solved. The Gustave Zédé, unassisted, has steamed from Toulon to the Salins d'Hyéres and to Marseilles ⃛ and has successfully discharged her missiles at the mark. On the surface she is almost invisible, and presents a target scarcely capable of being hit; below water her presence is revealed neither by the noise of her engine nor any movement of the surface. The objection raised against the submarine boat that she is blind loses force, since the Gustave Zédé makes momentary appearances on the surface to redirect her course, while she has a telescopic tube, with an arrangement of prisms and mirrors, utilising the principle of the camera obscura, which permits the surroundings to be surveyed, though imperfectly, in case of emergency. The Gustave Zédé has restricted range, owing to the great weight of the electric accumulators; but the new boats of the Naval class will have auxiliary steam for surface navigation.

From Nature19 January 1899.

50 YEARS AGO

Under the title “The Value of the Individual”, Mr. F. I. G. Rawlins, in Occasional Paper No. 5 of the British Social Hygiene Council, asks physicists to look beyond their immediate pre-occupations. Physical science, he argues, arrives at a point where it can go further; but this does not justify the assumption that there is nowhere further to go. Modern physical theory cannot (with Laplace) postulate a universe which is a self-maintaining system, about the origins or destiny of which it is superfluous to inquire. The step from physics to theology is not compulsory; but there is nothing to prevent it and a good deal to encourage it. Only when that step is taken can the universe be seen as an environment with a meaning, where human personality is able to realize itself.

From Nature22 January 1949.