University and Educational Intelligence

Abstract

CAMBRIDGE.-A memorandum emphasising the urgency of making formal provision for the encouragement of the study of geodesy and geodynamics in the University, and recommending the early establishment of a readership in these subjects if a suitable endowment can be obtained, has been submitted by the Special Board for Mathematics to the General Board of Studies. The latter has reported that it fully concurs in the importance of the early establishment of such a readership. In its memorandum the Special Board gives reasons why special provision and formal recognition for geodesy and geodynamics is particularly called for at the present time in the. University. The progiess on the theoretical side of the science of the figure of the earth has been promoted in the past very largely by investigators belonging to Cambridge in connection with the scientific problems presented both by the British and by the Indian Surveys, trigonometrical and gravitational. More recently the interconnection of the Surveys of different nations has made the subject an international one, and for the last twenty years the headquarters of the International Geodetic Association, supported by subventions from the various Governments, has been at Potsdam. Reconstruction is called for in the near future, and this country ought to be in a position to resume a large share in the direction. The establishment of a British Imperial Geodetic Institute, with State endowment, is now being urged by responsible scientific bodies, and some institution of the kind will be necessary. Whatever arrangements may be made on the technical and administrative side, the theoretical side, which is the foundation of all progress, is a subject of pure mathematical and dynamical science, and can best be advanced by the universities. In order for Cambridge to retain her historical position in the advance of this important science, and to take part in the training of the men who will be required for its prosecution, some special provision and formal recognition for the subject are called “for under modern conditions. .