Evening star., 1898-11-05

| MUS. He Is no Junius, however. He is a
| living person. 1t is said that he was once
| in the employ of the British telegraph sys-
| tem where he worked under the leadership
| of William Henry Preece. But they say in
| scientific circles that Mr.. Preece once
| brought out new theory, or made some
| statement concerning the performance of
| some electrical phenomenon, and that
| Heavysides wrote a letter to a scientific
| publication which so utterly ridicued or
| at least, diScredited the theory of Preece,
! that the latter exhibited his resentment by
causing the retirement of his critic from
| the governmental service. This may be
| simply an idle tale which has grown out of
| the peculiar actions of Heavysides, but at
| any rate he has not been visible to the gen.
| eral public since his retirement from the
| government service.
Man of Ability.
Once when Sir John Pindar was running
the London Electrician he received a COM
munication from a comparatively unknown
| man, which not only arrested his attention,
| but caused him to think that here at last
| must be genius in the world of mathe-
! matics. The communication was published
| and caused some little comment in the sci
i entihc world. 1t at once stamped its au-
| thor a man well worthy of the consid-
| GRAFTON of scientists, and the paper began
| receiving communications asking for in
| formation concerning this new light. Sir
Jonn Pindar was unable to answer these
1ol he Ulu not UlnlSel1 know
who the new writer was. The original COM
| munication had been sent through the mail,
| but no address accompanied the manu-
script, except that the editor was asked, in
case the manuscript was rejected, to please
| send it to certain grocery store" in a
| nearby district. And in case it was ac-
| cepted he was asked to kindly leave what
ever remuneration there would be due at
The same place. The editor of the Elec-
trician sent the said remuneration to the
grocery store, SO named and the practice
| has been in vogue ever since. In all the
years that Heavysides has been writing for
the Electrician he has never been in the
c1nce OF the paper. None of the staff
knows him by sight. None knows whether
| he is married or single, where he lives or
what he eats, anything else of a per-
| sonai nature concerning him. He is SIM
! ply secretiveness personified. An incident
| Illustrating this is told in English scientific
! circles.
| Why He Accepted n Pension
1t was known that the mathematician
had no income except the rather limited
| one which he received for his weekly arti-
| Gle to the Electrician. Several of the sc;en-
| tific men of England. in admiration for
| ms great talent determined to give him a
| pension But how to get him to accent
| 1t was question. Communications on the
SUBJECT, by means OF 4 grocery store post
| once, remained unanswered, and other lit
| tie incidents which cropped out during the
| correspondence showed that Heayysidos
was annoyed by the proposition. A scheme
| was then put on foot to compel him to
| accept the pension A letter was writ
| ten to him, in which it was said that his
| residence had been found out at last and
| that if he did not at once accept this pen
| sion delegation composed of the leading
| scientific m"n of London would mar.;h to
| MS mouse and present 1t to him in person
| Evidently this was to him fearful threat
| and ne believed it to be true for he wrote
| back stating that he would accept the uen-
l lStn dc.
| He has been receiving it ever since, and it
| is fondly believed by his friends, who have
| never seen him, that he is now living in
| comfort.
Something About His Work.
| No biography has ever been written
| about this very queer man, except in the
| most fragmentary manner as facts con-
| cerning his life have cropped out No pic
ture of him has ever been taken and thsre-
| fore, no description of the man can be
given. Whether he is school bred or not
| no one knows, but that he is a giant in his
particular hobby cannot be gainsad. He
| is a savant of the highest order and few
people who fall short of his own calibar are
| able to read his books. 1t is said that but
| six people in the world are really able to
| understand them at first rand. Heavy
sides is so thoroughly a mathesnati elan
| that he invents new systems of mathcmat-
| les as he goes along. In writing a book he
will develop new theory and explain it
| by means OF mathematics of his in
vention, so TO speak. After he has Iro-
ceeded for five or six chapters in this man.
| ner he will state that now he will explain
| the system of mathematics used in the pre-
ceding chapters" So that, in order to un-
derstand the book at all, must fl, st go
through it and pick out these explanatory
chapters. and, having thoroughly encon1-
passed them, use them as a basis for un-
ders landing the rest of the book On the
other hand, to read his books in ,arts
one would think them to be the compo-
sition of any one but the very staid per-
! son who writes them. For he is addicted
| most abominably to making very bad En-
glSh punS, and these he inserts in the
heart of the most serious part of the book
This is, doubtless part of his general &C.
centricity. For instance he is the inventor
! Of such terms as Impotence ''induct-
ence" and other words of this character,
used in electrical nomenclature. In fact,
nearly all the nome nclature of the alter
mating current originated with Heavysides.
Yet, in suggesting the word Impotence
| he hoped, in parenthesis, that none of his
readers would accent 1t upon the first syl-
! liable, rs this would be too much like i'm
pudence."
An Advanced Thinker.
| He is well abreast of all scientific thought
| and several times has pointed out the fact
| that many new theories had already been
| developed in his own books. and given the
numbers of the pages whereon the facts
were to be found And these were not the
bare claims of an impoStor who wished 10
set up as the originator of some accepted
theory. He really had developed the theo-
ries himself, but as 1t proved, no one under
stood them at the time. He did not care
very much for the credit of having been
first to point out the new paths, but he felt
1t his duty to tell these theorists that they
were wasting time in developing things
which already had been done. This how
ever is typical of his character. He never
seems to see that the theories might as well
never have existed at all so far as the gen-
eral public were concerned. because they
were quite unable to extract them from his
books. The fact that he himself understood
them and was deeply interested in them
seems to have been sufficient reason to him
why all other people must understand them
also.