Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review October 1911

Science Notes

page 33

Science Notes

. . . These faint smokes curling whitely,
as thou pliest thy trade in this devil's smithy."

Who is there can say that the study of pure science unfits woman for a domestic life? No one, indeed, who attended the ladies' oratorical contest, where four out of the eight candidate were science students, and of these one was placed second, one third.

Until a few weeks ago peaceful calm hung over the Science building, only interrupted by an occasional threat to "screw his neck," and, every now and then, a disagreement between Bruce and Strawbridge for "just a little alcohol for the prof." To-day all our happiness is shattered, the University Reform Pamphlet has been published, and read, and every student is keen to do research, and publish original papers. In some cases the desire to publish is keener than the desire to research. One eager youth set himself to discovering a formula which would enable any given chemistry book, X, to be readily located in the Library Y. He had already shown that X varied as the cube root of the author less mod Y, when his health broke down under the strain. Meanwhile, another student has been applying a Monte Carlo system he learnt from Von, and finds that it works rather well. He is going to patent it, and the Council, as a set-off, have decided to patent the Librarian himself.

The over-brilliant, but self-effacing Kaigou has already completed an investigation on "Dihedral Angles, or the Limitations of Plane Faces." This will appear in book form. The same versatile worker reports that he has at last succeeded in rediscovering oxygen. This constitutes a record, not having been done since 1774. Purdie and Edwards, in collaboration, claim to have discovered a new element in unknown 3C. Their methods, however, are not above suspicion, and they are repeating their experiments. Rountree and Evans have been engaged in confirming Joule's experiments on the mechanical equivalent of Heat. They think it probable that Joule was ignorant of the factor introduced by the energy of the Government Stroke, and that he could not have allowed for Experimental Error.

page 34

The new spirit of Research has spread even to the Senior Zoology students. These have given up their time-honoured occupation of dropping bits of dogfish and water on the heads of human and canine trespassers, and are giving themselves to the study of phloem, and xylem, and Pteris Aquilina variety Esculenta. Their efforts at section cutting have turned te benches into miniature wood heaps, but such keenness in a tribe so hardened is quite remarkable.

Among Cotton's stonecutters the Renaissance was short-lived. It died a sudden death when one of the junior students, who was excavating a fossil Dinotherium in Mount Street, was run over by Oram's motor-car.

No energy is ever wasted in the Science Building, and I must now enter the writing of these notes in the prof.'s attendance book, as half an hour's lab. work, so, Dear Spike, I must remain, as ever,

Apus..