Electricity Present and Future

Abstract

THE title of this book is certainly a misnomer, and -I any reader expecting therefrom to find the volume largely occupied with a prophecy of the future development of electricity is destined to be disappointed. Had the book been called “Electricity Past and Present,” the subject-matter would have been much more correctly indicated, as a fair amount of historical matter is combined with the description of the present state of applied electricity. Regarded simply as a popular exposition of this state, the work has much to recommend it, but it is, perhaps, hardly fair to the author's intentions to look on it simply in this light. From the preface one gathers that the intention has been to trace the tendencies observable in recent developments in electrical engineering, and to produce a work, to use the author's own words, “not unworthy a place in a collection of studies in scientific philosophy.” Candidly, we must admit that we are not impressed with the “scientific philosophy” of the book, unless, indeed, it is philosophy to show how the simpler forms of machines and apparatus have been modified to suit the varied requirements of modern industry. Electricity Present and Future. Lucien Poincare. Translated by Jasper Kemmis. Pp. viii + 315.(London: Sisley's, Ltd., n.d.) Price 7s. 6d. net.