Concerning the Nature of Things: Six Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution

Abstract

TO deal with the “nature of things” as seen by modern physics in a course of six lectures to a juvenile audience is indeed a formidable task, and there are probably few besides Sir William Bragg who could have attempted it with any prospect of success. That success was achieved by the lectures there can be no manner of doubt to any one who had the good fortune to be present. The personal charm of manner of the lecturer and the beauty of his experimental illustrations was a great help, and no doubt many of his audience were carried smoothly along on the stream of his argument, in spite of the fact that the real inwardness of much of it must have been beyond their immediate understanding. The lectures cannot have failed to stimulate a vital curiosity as to the nature of things in some of the young hearers, and may perhaps have laid the foundation of more than one future career to be devoted to the successful deeper delving into that very “nature.”

Concerning the Nature of Things: Six Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution.

By Sir William Bragg. Pp. xi + 232 + 32 plates. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1925.) 7s. 6d. net.