Scientific Centenaries in 1945

Abstract

A REVIEW of the scientific centenaries which will occur in 1945 may well begin with a quotation from the autobiographical notes of the English mathematician John Wallis (1616–1703), written when he was eighty: "About the year 1645," he wrote, "while I lived in London... I had the opportunity of being acquainted with divers worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy, and other parts of human learning; and particularly of what hath been called the New Philosophy, or Experimental Philosophy. We did by agreements, divers of us, meet weekly in London on a certain day, to treat and discourse of such affairs.... These meetings we held sometimes at Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street... on occasion of his keeping an operator in his house for grinding lenses for telescopes and microscopes; sometimes at a convenient place in Cheap-side, and sometimes at Gresham College, or some place near adjoyning.