England's Intelligentsia

The British Association for the Advancement of Science, founded 1831, the most important of English scientific congresses, held its annual meeting in Liverpool under the presidency of Sir Ernest Rutherford, Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge, where he succeeded Sir Joseph Thomson, famed editor of The Outline of Science (TIME, April 7).

Sir Ernest's presidential address was a graphic summary of present knowledge of atomic and electronic theory, so much of which is his own contribution. It was broadcasted throughout England. The years since 1918 he called "the heroic age of physical science," for never before have discoveries of fundamental importance followed each other with such bewildering activity. " No one can draw any sharp line of distinction between so-called pure and applied research. Both are equally essential to progress."