Notes

Abstract

THE mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, is in the gift of the Crown, and to this post, vacant by the recent death of Dr. Butler, Sir J. J. Thomson has been appointed. No fellow of that great house has had a more distinguished career, and his appointment was not unexpected. He is the first layman to hold the office. Three other fellows of the Royal Society are heads of Cambridge colleges, namely, Dr. A. E. Shipley, Christ's; Dr. H. K. Anderson, Gonville and Caius; and Prof. A. C. Seward, Downing. “J. J.,” as he is commonly called, was born just over sixty-one years ago, entered Trinity in 1876, was made a lecturer of his college in the same year in which he took his M.A. degree, and shortly afterwards, at the early age of twenty-seven, was appointed Cavendish professor at Cambridge in succession to Lord Ray-leigh. His success in developing the Cambridge school of mathematical and experimental physics must be familiar to all readers of NATURE, and there is scarcely any civilised country which has not sent students to work under him in his laboratory. The brilliant researches carried on there were surveyed in NATURE of March, 1913, when Sir Joseph Thomson was the subject of an article in our series of “Scientific Worthies.” In 1905 Sir Joseph Thomson was appointed professor of physics at the Royal Institution, and was awarded a Nobel prize for physics in the following year. He was president of the British Association in 1908, and four years later received the coveted distinction of the Order of Merit. In 1915 he was elected president of the Royal Society, and now his academic course is crowned by the headship of the leading college in his University. This is not the place to describe Sir Joseph Thomson's discoveries. It is more interesting to turn to the future. He is a ready speaker, a good talker, has the “saving grace “of humour, is popular, and knows and is known by all physicists and most chemists. He has now a great opportunity, and we predict with confidence that, aided by his wife, his rule in Trinity will add further lustre to his career, and bring university society into ever closer touch with leaders of scientific thought in Europe and America.