Brilliant Idea Research Articles

The Framework for the Use of Capital

AUTOMOBILE accidents can be very serious when two fast-moving cars collide while speeding around a sharp turn in the road. Strict legislation accomplished but little toward the reduction of this hazard. Then someone conceived the brilliant idea of painting a line in the center of the road, dividing it into two sections. The result was a marked reduction in the accident rate. A driver responded subconsciously to the command and guided his car to the right of the line. Fines, jail terms, and public appeal had all yielded meager results; but a change in the environmental pattern to which the individual driver was exposed, proved effective in guiding his behavior.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF ANCIENT HAWAII

HAWAIIAN music-what do these words bring to your mind? Probably a picture of flowered-shirted natives sitting around, strumming ukuleles or to the gliding tones of the steel guitar. The melodies themselves have an appealing charm, a certain melancholy that catches at the throat, and a peculiar novelty that gives them a character all their own. Who can hear the wistful strains of Aloha Oe without feeling the sweet sorrow of parting? This is the music that is generally accepted as genuine Hawaiian song. But, to be truthful, Song of the Islands is no more real Hawaiian music than Old Black Joe is real African Negro music. In the first place, previous to the coming of the missionaries, the Hawaiians did no singing, in the ordinary sense of the word. There was not even a word for singing in the Hawaiian language. The modern Hawaiian term himeni comes from the English word hymn. The rendition of hymns by the missionaries gave the Hawaiians their first idea of melody. A few salty chanties picked up from sailors off the whaling vessels added a nice touch of variety. Then, in 1879, four Portuguese immigrants, who in the old country had been in the business of making musical instruments, decided to try their hand at it in From Portugal they brought a viola, a rajao, and a braga. These stringed instruments seemed to suit progressive Hawaiian needs exactly, and quickly became renamed guitar, taro-patch fiddle, and ukulele, respectively. The stage was still not quite set for My Little Grass Shack in Kealakaku, Hawaii. Hawaiians were still using their fingers for stopping the strings on the guitar. It remained for a Hawaiian schoolboy to make the most significant contribution of Hawaii to music, the introduction of an entirely new technique in the method of playing stringed instruments. It was about the year 1894, that Joseph Kekuku, a student of the Kamehmeha School for Boys in Honolulu, had his brilliant idea. He, like many other boys in the school, was very fond of strumming a guitar, particularly when he

Adjustable Clock-dials

To gain daylight by adjustment of the clock is a brilliant practical idea, but the present method of realising it by moving the hands of the clock is grossly unscientific, and should, I think, be changed for the alternative one.

In Memoriam: Henry Clifton Sorby

1826–1908. During the past year the Society has had to deplore the loss of one of its oldest members and Yorkshire perhaps the most brilliant original genius to which the county has given birth. The son of a well-to-do tool manufacturer and colliery proprietor, Sorby received a liberal education, first in a private school and at the Grammar School of his native town, Sheffield; while later, by a most fortunate choice, he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Walter Mitchell, a man whose wide attainments in mathematics, physical science, and anatomy fitted him in eminent degree to give such an insight into different aspects of natural science as would arouse and stimulate Sorby’s inherent tastes and aptitudes. The sympathetic biographical notices by Mr. Thomas Sheppard* and Professor J. W. Judd† render it unnecessary to review in detail Sorby’s works. A nearly complete bibliography, in the compilation of which he himself assisted, is published in the “Naturalist,” and it will be seen how versatile were his talents and how wide was the range of his interests. There is scarcely any department of science but owes to Sorby’s genius some brilliant and fructifying idea or some beautiful and ingenious method of research. To chemistry he contributed his first paper and to geology his last, but physics, botany, zoology, sanitary science, forensic medicine, meteorology, metallurgy, mineralogy all received important contributions. To geologists the name of Sorby will always stand associated with the foundation of the science of microscopic petrology. Though the investigation ...