Record

LevelFile
Finding Number (Click this to view full catalogue structure)OJL/1/434
TitleEdmund Taylor Whittaker
Extent7 items
Date1927-1930
Description/1 Copy of typescript letter to Whittaker [Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, mathematician and physicist, 1873-1956] from Oliver Lodge, 9 September 1927. Lodge congratulates Whittaker on a Presidential Address he delivered at a recent conference [of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Leeds]. Lodge also criticises the way in which the organisers of the meetings seem more concerned with the strict timetabling of the event than letting intellectual discussions reach their natural end. He also criticises the focus on lantern slides, which results in a darkened room that makes viewing the blackboard difficult.

/2 Copy of typescript letter to [E. T.] Whittaker from Oliver Lodge, 18 November 1926. Lodge interrogates Whittaker's recent publication in the Philosophical Magazine. Lodge questions Whittaker's choice of a magnetic and not electric molecule, and asks several questions about his publication.

/3 Copy of typescript letter to [E. T.] Whittaker from Oliver Lodge, 6 December 1927. Lodge confirms he is familiar with Heaviside's plane wave containing a nucleus, and adds some criticisms to Whittaker's current thinking about plane waves and magnetic and electric planes.

/4 Copy of typescript letter to [E. T.] Whittaker from Oliver Lodge, 2 April 1928. Lodge discusses the practicality of an ether vortex in relation to Whittaker's work on the nucleus of a wave. The letter also discusses M. J. M. Hill's spherical vortex, di-pole nuclei, infinitesimal magnets and Poincaré pressure. Lodge also asks Whittaker if he has read Max Planck's recent publication to the Franklin Institute on 'The Physical Reality of Light Quants' or [Karl Kelchner] Darrow's paper on 'An Introduction to Wave Mechanics'.

/5 Manuscript letter from E. T. Whittaker to Oliver Lodge, written from 48 George Square, 6 July 1929. Whittaker apologises for his late reply to Lodge's letter about energy, which he has delayed replying to becuase he was involved as a professor in June examinations [University of Edinburgh]. Whittaker then responds to four points Lodge had made in his previous letter about a proof-sheet of Whittaker's recent publication in the 'Gazette'. These points discuss Kaufmann's electricity experiments, the mathematical uses of tensors, vectors and scalars, Einstein's 'Unified Field Theory' and Whittaker's previous pupil, G. C. McVittie.

/6 Copy of typescript letter to E. T. Whittaker from the secretary of Oliver Lodge, 8 July 1929. The letter informs Whittaker that Lodge is in France, and that he will therefore receive the copy of Dr McVittie's paper which Whittaker sent, upon his return.

/7 Copy of typescript letter to [E. T.] Whittaker [from Oliver Lodge], 16 June 1930. Lodge writes that he has read and enjoyed Oliver Heaviside's article in the 'Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society', and that his enjoyment was greatened by knowledge of Heaviside's eccentric character. Lodge also discusses the blocking of some of Heaviside's publications about electrical telegraphy by William Henry Preece, and remarks that Preece had also behaved ignorantly regarding Lodge's propositions about self-induction and lightning conductors.
Access StatusOpen

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