An Author's Gratitude

Abstract

I WISH to express my gratitude to NATURE and to the reviewer in NATURE of my little pamphlet on Electrical Units for exposing a compound error by which the farad came to be described as a fraction of the electrostatic C.G.S. unit of capacity instead of the electro-magnetic unit. Was there ever a greater blunder? It was as if I had said the value of the tenth part of a farthing is sufficient to pay off a million times the National Debt of Great Britain. On recovering from the shock occasioned by the revelation, I hastened to the printer, and got him to correct the error “ere the sun went down,” and now I overflow with gratitude to your reviewer, who has relieved me of the awful incubus of an error of the 10²⁰ magnitude.