50 years ago

'Interpretation of science to the public'. By Sir Lawrence Bragg — It is perennially surprising to find that it is the simpler experiments which have the warmest reception, especially if they can be done on a spectacular scale. The audience likes to see 'the works'. It is of little help to do something mysterious in a box which makes a pointer move over a scale. The simple experiment is effective because it can be grasped completely, and the members of the audience have the pleasurable feeling that it has become a part of their own experience ... The other guiding principle of the popular lecture is that of starting with something with which the audience is thoroughly familiar in every-day life, and leading them further with that as a basis ... [The lecturer] has to put himself in the place of the intelligent layman and realize that ideas and experiences so familiar to him are unexplored country to his listener.

From Nature 22 March 1958.

100 years ago

Lest some readers should infer from your obituary note on Sir Denzil Ibbetson (March 12, p. 443) that this distinguished anthropologist invented the word “godlings” for the rural deities of India, it is worth noting that “godling” was good English in the sixteenth century, and has never been allowed to drop. The Philological Society's “New English Dictionary” quotes Lambarde's “Perambulation of Kent” (1570–6) on raising altars “to this our newe found Godlyng” ... Coleridge preferred “godkin” for a minor deity with masculine attributes, but sanctioned “goddessling”. Charles Colton in 1675 permitted a certain cult of “little Goddikins”; Coventry Patmore regarded “godlet” as the more dignified appellative. Anthropologists have therefore had a fairly ample choice; but it should be added that in some of the above examples, at least, Dr. Murray and his coadjutors suspected a “jocular” intention.

From Nature 19 March 1908.