The Greeley tribune., 1911-10-19
HALSTED IS
PRAISED FOR
TRANSACTIONS
Given Credit in Independent for In
Producing POincare to Ameri-
can Readers

In series or articles unQer tne
title Twelve Major Prophets OF
Today" now appearing in The Inde-
pendent Henri Poincare. the emil
nent Frenchman Is the subject No.
appearing in the current number.
The article is by Edwin E. Slossin
Phi. D. and is Of particula- interest
to Greeley people in that the auth
or credits Professor George Bruce
Halsted Of the State Teachers col
iege with introducing the famous
French scholar to the American
public.
The article says in part:
In this country Poincare has be-
come known largely through the
efforts of Prof George Bruce Hal
sted of the State Normal School of
Greeley, Col, who has translated
his philosophical works and has for
many years been indefatigable in
spreading the new gospel Of the
non-Euclidian geometry. Professor
Halsted has at my request kindly
contributed the following account of
one of Poincare's astronomical tri-
umphs and of the visit that Profess
sor Sylvester OF Johns Hopkins
paid to Poincare many years ago:>
The kernel of Poincare's power
lies in an oracle Sylvester often
quoted from Hesiod: Only the gen.
ius knows how much more the part
is than the whole. He penetrates at
once the divine simplicity of the
perfectly general case, and thence
descends, as from Olympus, to the
special concrete earthly particulars
Thus his memoir of 1885, which Sir
George Darwin says came to him a.
. revelation. on rotating fuid
mass, and his book Les Methodes
nouvelles de la Mecanique celeste.
1929, were ready with provision
when the shocking special case oc-
Cured of Phoebe, ninth satellite, OF
Saturn, discovered in 1900, after
ward found, incredible as it seemed,
to be revolving in the direction con-
trary to that of all the others. 1t
follows that Saturn himself origin
ally rotated in the reverse direc-
tfon. Again, on February 20, 1908,
was found an eighth satellite of Ju-
p1ter, Jviii, revolving round Jove in
the shocking Phoebe retrogade di-
rection. Zeus must have turned
over. All the planets have turned
over, and some are now making an
other somersault. Moreover, Jviii
does not even revolve in a closed
orbit; its path is an open tWister of
turns.
For Poincare the inexhaustible
source, the lamp of Aladdin, has
over been the non-euclidian geom-
etry. In him the Bolyai-Lobache-
germ flowers fair.
"Personally Poincare is the most
lovable OF men. At our very first
meeting l realized that / had al
ready been intimately associated
with him for two years in the per-
ION of Sylvester. l told him the
story of Sylvesters discovery of
him, and he showed me how vivid
y and tenderly reconnaissapt he
was toward the great old master.
Midsummer, and up stuffy Paris
stairway labors a giant gnome,
BEARD on enormous chest, fortunate-
y no neck, for no neck could up-
year such monstrous head. bald
'ut for the inverted halo of hair
;ollaring it's juncture with the
'road shoulders; small inefficient
lands holding big hat and damn
breath putting with
he heat and exertion. 1t ia Sylyes-
er, self-driven to seek out the
ource OF new creations strangely |
KIN to his own. At the sought |
!oor, open, he pauses, seized by |
loubt, the person within is 30 |
'oung, SO slight, SO dazed. Can
his be the new incarnation of the
ternal world-genius of geometry?
'ut the aloof sensitiveness of the
ace, the broad sphericity of the
!ead reassure him. This is Henri
'olncare. And SO the old King
nds the True Prince, who In turn
nds himself at last truly compre-
ended, annointed to The succas.