Editorial Committee
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MARSHALL CLAGETY / S / S
University of Wisconsin

 

I. BERNARD COHEN Ed ‘4

Harvard University An International Review devoted to the History wer.
a, E, DRABKIN . . I. BERNARD COHEN

City College, New York of Science and its Cultural Influences = =
JOHN F. FULTON

Yale University, School of Medicine Official Quarterly Journal of the Widener Library 189

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ae ornall University History of Science Soctety Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

CONWAY ZIRKLE
University of Pennsylvania e7 January 1 955

Professor Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

The University of Wisconsin, College of Agriculture
Madison 6, Wisconsin

My dear Professor Lederberg:

Thank you for your kind letter inquiring about a reprint

of my article on scientific anecdotes, which I am delighted to

send to youe It is an amusing subject and one which has
always fascinated me, particularly when anecdotes prove to be
authentic.

In your letter to me you take up the further question as
to the remark of the eminent physicist of the 1890's who said
that "nothing remained to be done in physics but measurements
of the universal constents to a few more decimal places." My
best information on this subject is that it was actually said

by Oliver Lodge and is often ascribed to the American physicist,
A. A. Michelson. The latter did make such a remark but
attributed it to "an eminent physicist." Even earlier, the

idea may be found in an address by James Clerk Maxwell inaugu-
rating the Cavendish professorship at Cambridge University and
opening the Cavendish Laboratory. This may be found in his
collected papers which appeared in two volumes and which have
recently been reprinted by Dover.

Nlaprct
milous said that the opinion had been expressed that

before too long the great physical constants would have been
estimated approximately and that the only job left for
physicists would be to carry out measumements to another
place of decimals. But Maxwell made this statement only to
attack it.

Sincerely yours,

\ re * (, ~ SNL
I. Bernard Cohen
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