100 YEARS AGO

As a constant reader of Nature and of papers read before scientific societies, I have been struck by what seems to me an inaccurate use of language by English men of science which is rarely chargeable upon Americans — which is, at any rate, at variance with American usage. I will illustrate with the following examples:—One star is five light-years distant; another is twenty-five light-years distant. The English astronomer will say that the second is five times farther away than the first. A mass of aluminium weighs one pound; a mass of lead of equal size weighs something more than four pounds. The English physicist will say that the aluminium is more than four times lighter than the lead. Both expressions seem to me incorrect and unworthy of a man of science who endeavours to express himself accurately. In the one case he should say that one star is five times as far away as the other. In the other case the whole expression is vicious. Weight, heaviness, is an attribute of matter; lightness is absence, or deficiency, of weight. To say that one article is a certain number of times lighter than another is like saying of two vessels unequally exhausted of air that one is four times emptier than another. It is good English — is it not? — to say that one article is twice as heavy as another. If it is twice heavier, it is three times as heavy. I submit this criticism of an Anglicism as an offset to some one of many criticisms of Americanisms.

E. S., Boston, U.S.A.

From Nature 13 October 1904.

50 YEARS AGO

On September 6, President Eisenhower announced that agreement had been reached between the United States and six other nations to establish an international agency which would foster the growth and spread of the new atomic technology for peaceful purposes. Atomic materials would be set aside for projects sponsored by the agency, and when arrangements were complete the United States would establish a reactor school to train representatives of friendly nations in the skills needed for their own atomic purposes... Mr Dulles, the American Secretary of State,... indicated that it was now proposed to create an international agency the initial membership of which included nations from all regions of the world... No nation would be excluded from participation in this venture.

From Nature 16 October 1954.