50 Years Ago

The winds of change are sometimes almost indistinguishable from placid summer breezes. The decision of the British Government that British money must now be decimal ... would bring some benefit, not disaster ... There will be those who claim that the duodecimal system is better because twelve has several integral factors, though it is at least as sensible to argue that the base of all arithmetic should be a prime number in order that people should not be encouraged to manipulate vulgar fractions ... More distantly, other feats of rationalization may now be attempted. Why not, for example, decimalize the day? ... A decimalized day should be a much more practical proposition. From midnight to midnight would be a million new seconds. One per cent of a day, or 104 new seconds, would be a convenient sub-unit roughly equal to a quarter of what is now an hour. Astronomers and airline travellers alike would welcome — in due course — that further proof that decimals are not merely reasonable but inevitable.

From Nature 19 March 1966

100 Years Ago

Scientific men in their most august society are banded together “for the improvement of natural knowledge.” They are by implication a body of students working in the temple of Nature for truth's sake alone, heedless of the world and its rewards. What they garner is their gift to the world: they fill another page in the Revelation that brings men nearer to the angels. Let a man wander into the world with his science as wares to sell for money profit, and he has passed from true brotherhood. Surely this idea, perhaps rather fancifully stated, is at the bottom of much of our exclusiveness.

From Nature 16 March 1916 Footnote 1