100 YEARS AGO

The unfortunate fatal accident which occurred at the Fulham Public Baths on December 23 serves to show how dangerous an electric shock may be when the conditions are such that really good contact is made. In this case, two bathers were killed by standing up in their baths and putting their hands on a metal rail running along the top of the partition between the baths; on top of this rail ran the iron pipes containing the electric-supply leads. It seems that there was leakage, possibly in a faulty lampholder, to these pipes, which were insufficiently “earthed”. The bathers therefore completed the earth through their bodies to the bath itself, and thus received a shock which, in spite of the fact that the pressure could only have been something like 170 volts, had fatal results on account of the very good contacts which existed. The circumstances of the case are altogether exceptional, and there is absolutely no need for users of electric light to take any alarm.

From Nature 8 January 1903.

50 YEARS AGO

Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, inventor of the tensor calculus, was born at Lugo, in Italy, on January 12, 1853. The absolute differential calculus, as he himself called it, gained little attention until Einstein used it for the formulation of general relativity, even though it had reached a mature form by 1895, after some ten years of growth. It was so little thought of, indeed, that in 1901 Ricci was denied the Italian Royal Prize in mathematics on the ground that the calculus was “useful but not essential for the treatment of some mathematical questions”. Nevertheless he himself retained a belief in its value... In 1912 Einstein's attention was directed to it by his colleague, Marcel Grossmann, and the outcome was the relativistic theory of gravitation published in 1916... The relativistic principle of covariance, namely, that the general laws of physics can be expressed in a form which is independent of the co-ordinate system, has a meaning only in so far as there exists a way of expressing them in such a form. The Ricci calculus provides a means of doing so... The tensor calculus is fully established as one of the main instruments of modern mathematics, and gives to its inventor a permanent place in the history of the subject.

From Nature 10 January 1953.