100 YEARS AGO

Although the terms “ass” and, at any rate in Germany, “ox” (Ochs) are very generally applied to stupid persons, those who have observed the bovine and asinine genera know that this is an injustice to those animals... . A donkey that was kept here learnt to open, not only the gate of its own field, but other gates. One day, having left its own abode, accompanied by two ponies, it went to another field half a mile off, opening three gates on the way, liberated the occupants of this field, a mare and her foal, and a yearling, old friends of the donkey's, as they used to live together, and the whole party, which had been joined by a mastiff, proceeded to wander through the world. About two miles from here the horses were recognised and secured, and the donkey eventually returned with the mastiff; but after this exploit it was thought advisable to get rid of the donkey, as being too zealously devoted to the cause of emancipation.

From Nature 11 September 1902.

50 YEARS AGO

Scientific Progress of April (40, No. 158, 193; 1952) contains an interesting and informative article by Prof. H. S. W. Massey entitled “Fundamental Particles”, the term which is applied usually to such entities as electrons, protons, etc. ... Turning next to the classification of the fundamental wave particles, Prof. Massey shows that the particles can be loosely separated into three categories, which he aptly terms “building stones” (electron, proton and neutron), “cements” (photon and pi-meson) and “bric-a-brac” (neutrino, mu-, V-, tau- and kappa-mesons). The first two categories, as their names imply, are involved in the structure of matter, but the third, apparently, does not fulfil any important role in that respect. The properties of the various particles and the relations between them are briefly and clearly described, and it is evident that their number (now some twenty-four) is far too large for them all to be fundamental. Nevertheless, as Prof. Massey states, the discovery of new particles is still a prominent feature of modern physics, and thus, until some new fundamental advance or simplification is made on the theoretical side, not only to provide a basis for the “bric-a-brac” but possibly also to account for the more complete range of particles yet to be explored, the fundamental scheme of Nature must remain obscure.

From Nature 13 September 1952.