| RefNo | MS/603/10/128 |
| Previous numbers | 1900 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Letter from D'Arcy W [Wentworth] Thompson, St Andrews, to [Joseph] Larmor |
| Creator | Thompson; Sir D'Arcy Wentworth (1860-1948); British zoologist and classical scholar |
| Recipient | Larmor; Sir Joseph (1857-1942); Irish theoretical physicist |
| Date | 20 May 1918 |
| Description | Larmor has dismissed his paradox with ease. He discusses a problem a a body in space fixed by two points, and by one point. He does not know how to fix a body in space, thinking the instructions are hazy and referring to an article in the recent number of Mind. His minute mathematician, dwelling in a tetrahedral crystal world have a different idea of the dimensions of space and would require some persuasion that he lived in four dimensional space. Tait used to ask how you could explain right and left to a perfectly symmetrical being in perfectly symmetrical space, and Thompson ventures to ask if there are any dimensions. He continues to discuss the point of view of his small mathematician and Thompson himself is as mystified as ever, thinking that space is independent of dimensions. Crystallographers have simplified their subject but still work in three parameters. He is glad to hear of the new policy in Ireland. He relates how [Valentine] Steinberger of Galway was arrested after the Dublin outbreak and the story in Galway was that he had about £1,000 of gold in his desk. When Thompson was in Galway in the first year of war, four professors were pointed out to him as rebels and two besides Steinberger were arrested and released.
In a postscript, he gives an extract from Kant provided by Professor James Seth of Edinburgh, relating this to his own thinking on the uniformity of space. |
| Extent | 5p. |
| Format | Typescript |
| PhysicalDescription | Ink on paper |
| AccessStatus | Open |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA6267 | Thompson; Sir; D'Arcy Wentworth (1860 - 1948); naturalist; mathematician | 1860 - 1948 |