50 Years Ago

It is curious how few facts of real importance are known about the life and parentage of Archimedes, while the trivial story of his leaping out of his bath shouting “Heureka” is familiar to every schoolboy. The first record of it, however, is in the works of Vitruvius, written about two hundred years after Archimedes's death, so that there was ample time for the story to have been embroidered, even if it is not a pure invention. It is much the same with the account of his launching a large ship single-handed, saying, “Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth”, and with the myth that he burned the Roman fleet by using mirrors on a sunny day. These traditional stories, and others, are critically considered in Prof. E. J. Dijksterhuis's book.

From Nature 23 March 1957.

100 Years Ago

Nature Knowledge in Modern Poetry — In this book the author deals in a very interesting manner with the many references to the aspects of nature in the poetical works of Tennyson, Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, and Lowell... Interest in the insect world is shown to a greater extent by Tennyson, for he alludes to it frequently, and always with the accuracy which reveals great knowledge... Tennyson's love of geology is apparent in the frequent references to it and the similes he gives, which clearly show he must have read a good deal on this as indeed on many other less popular subjects; for instance, he does not shun allusions to the nebular hypothesis, spectrum analysis, and astronomy. It seems evident that he accepted the theory of evolution, for many quotations might be made to show it...

“Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, And reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.”

From Nature 21 March 1907.