Instruments in Science and Industry

Abstract

I FEEL that it is a great honour to be chosen as president of Section A of the British Association, particularly because on looking through the names of my distinguished predecessors I find that I am the first professional maker of scientific instruments to occupy this chair. My immediate predecessor, Dr. C. G. Darwin, who now occupies the important position of director of the National Physical Laboratory, gave us at Cambridge a brilliant dissertation on the use of mathematics in solving physical problems, and the need of the mathematical outlook when facing a series of facts requiring solution. He would, I am sure, be one of the first to insist that the mathematician requires physical facts to enable him to develop a physical theory, and that the probable soundness of the theory will depend largely upon the accuracy of the data discussed. In the majority of cases this accuracy depends on the qualities of the apparatus employed in the observations, assuming that the observer is fully qualified and capable of obtaining the best results from it. I believe that all such observers now demand far more from their apparatus than was formerly possible, but few realize the amount of thought and labour involved in raising the accuracy obtainable from one to one-tenth of one per cent.