Advancing science : being personal reminiscences of the British Association in the nineteenth century / by Sir Oliver Lodge.

  • Lodge, Oliver, Sir, 1851-1940.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Advancing science : being personal reminiscences of the British Association in the nineteenth century / by Sir Oliver Lodge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of information among the various sections ; which, by the way, still stopped at G. I am sure that this informal conference and friendliness among the secretaries was a good plan. York, i 88i Eighteen hundred and eighty-one marked the Jubilee of the Association, and accordingly * the meet¬ ing was held in York under the Presidency of Sir John Lubbock, with Sir William Thomson once more President of Section A. It was at this meeting that he introduced the term “ dynamo ” instead of the more cumbrous “ dynamo electric machine.” He had put in a paper for the Friday of Section A at the last moment, the title of which ended with what, as Secre¬ tary (whose business it was to get the programme printed for next morning by visiting the printers and correcting the type), I thought was the mere written abbreviation “ dynamo.” But instead of altering the unusual term I consulted Sir William about it, and he said, “ No, leave it dynamo, since I consider that it is now time to have a handy term, and I want to introduce this one.” So there it stands as the first public use of what is now an exceedingly familiar name. The Secretarium that year was in the buildings of a * Because the first meeting was held at York in 1831.