John William Strutt, third baron Rayleigh, O.M., F.R.S., sometime president of the Royal society and chancellor of the University of Cambridge / by his son Robert John Strutt, fourth baron Rayleigh.

  • Robert Strutt, 4th Baron Rayleigh
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: John William Strutt, third baron Rayleigh, O.M., F.R.S., sometime president of the Royal society and chancellor of the University of Cambridge / by his son Robert John Strutt, fourth baron Rayleigh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    or four years of undergraduate life, in which, under Dr. Routh’s guidance, I first made extensive acquaintance with those wonderful developments of the human intellect which are called Mathematics. In after-life I think one seldom has so often repeated what is perhaps the highest of intellectual grati¬ fications, namely the sense of seeing one’s ways through a difficulty. What was at first obscure gradually becomes illuminated as his thoughts play more and more around the difficulty. It was not far from where we are now assembled [Peterhouse Combination Room] that my mathematical education was for the most part undertaken, and it is, I think, perhaps to the credit of the mathematical system of those days, which it is perhaps now rather the fashion to abuse, and to the manner in which it was worked by Dr. Routh, that I have at no time during what I may call my subsequent scientific career had occasion to regret any of the time I spent on the Mathematical course at Cambridge. Looking back upon the time spent in Dr. Routh’s rooms I can remember that what most struck us so often was the extraordinary perfection with which Dr. Routh was able to bring his knowledge to bear on every subject with which he was dealing. Many of us felt we could do pretty well with our subject when we had been working at it perhaps a month or two, but when we had mechanics at our disposal we saw with dismay that our analytical geometry was getting behindhand. Dr. Routh seemed to have every¬ thing at his fingers’ ends. I am not sure that on looking back I do not agree with Sir James Stirling that the most wonderful thing of all was the patience with which Dr. Routh dealt with successive pupils. ...” Strutt as a freshman was willing to discuss mathematical questions with his contemporaries, unlike most young men of that age. One of them writes : “I can still remember a dis¬ cussion I had with him about some question in chances. But I do not think anyone expected him to be senior Wrangler until he came to the higher mathematics, when he wanted to walk in a light peculiar to himself while we meaner intellects were groping in various shades of darkness.” My father