Abstract
SIR WILLIAM BRAGG delivered his presidential address to the Royal Society on November 30, opening with the customary record of the losses by death of the Society during the past year. These have been unusually heavy, for they have included the Society's patron, H.M. King George V, two foreign members and no less than twenty-one fellows. Reference was made to recent gifts for research to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and to the fact that the Society has undertaken a principal share in the administration of £200,000 bequeathed by the late Mr. H. B. Gordon Warren, the interest of which is to be applied to the encouragement of research in metallurgy, engineering, physics and chemistry. The capital value of the funds administered by the Society, including the Warren bequest and also the bequest of about £40,000 by the late Sir Joseph Petavel, is now approximately a million sterling. Surveying some developments of the past few years in the light of the research which has made them possible, Sir William said: “From this point of view the suggestion sometimes made that scientific workers might take a holiday looks more ridiculous than ever. No nation could afford such an intellectual disarmament in the face of the world; nor could the world itself in face of the evils that are to be overcome.” There is the danger, however, that research funds may inadvertently lead a man into a blind alley so far as useful occupation is concerned; it should be the business of bodies administering such trusts to see that the highly qualified men they utilize are not wasted when their active research has ended. The address concluded with a discussion of recent developments in the field of the X-ray analysis of crystalline structure (see p. 953).
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Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society. Nature 138, 979–980 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138979a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138979a0