Produced by Chris Curnow, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text. * * * * * THE EARL OF PEMBROKE TO THE ABBESS OF WILTON. "Go spin, you jade! go spin!" [Illustration: MAGNETISM, LIGHT, AND MOLECULAR SPINNING TOPS. _Page 122._ _THE ROMANCE OF SCIENCE._ SPINNING TOPS. _THE "OPERATIVES' LECTURE"_ OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT LEEDS, 6th SEPTEMBER, 1890. BY PROFESSOR JOHN PERRY, M.E., D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S. With Numerous Illustrations. _REPRINT OF NEW AND REVISED EDITION,_ _With an Illustrated Appendix on the Use of Gyrostats._ LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, Northumberland Avenue, W.C.; 43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C. BRIGHTON: 129, North Street. NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM. 1910 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE GENERAL LITERATURE COMMITTEE [_Date of last impression, April 1908_] This Report of an Experimental Lecture WAS INSCRIBED TO THE LATE LORD KELVIN, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE PUPIL, THE LECTURER, WHO HEREBY TOOK A CONVENIENT METHOD OF ACKNOWLEDGING THE REAL AUTHOR OF WHATEVER IS WORTH PUBLICATION IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES. * * * * * PREFACE. This is not the lecture as it was delivered. Instead of two pages of letterpress and a woodcut, the reader may imagine that for half a minute the lecturer played with a spinning top or gyrostat, and occasionally ejaculated words of warning, admonition, and explanation towards his audience. A verbatim report would make rather uninteresting reading, and I have taken the liberty of trying, by greater fullness of explanation, to make up to the reader for his not having seen the moving apparatus. It has also been necessary in a treatise intended for general readers to simplify the reasoning, the lecture having been delivered to persons whose life experiences peculiarly fitted them for understanding scientific things. An "argument" has been added at the end to make the steps of the reasoning clearer. JOHN PERRY. * * * * * {9} SPINNING TOPS. -------- At a Leeds Board School last week, the master said to his class, "There is to be a meeting of the British Association in Leeds. What is it all about? Who are the members of the British Association? What do they do?" There was a long pause. At length it was broken by an intelligent shy boy: "Please, sir, I know--they spin tops!"[1]