SCIENCE AND PRESS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 49, 20 November 1937, Page 6

SCIENCE AND PRESS

Our Own Correspondent.)

C Journalist's Memories of Lord Rutherford HORROR OF REPORTERS

(From

LONDON, Oct. 27. In an article in Eeynolds News, Mr Tom Clarke, the well-known journalist, sa-ys the'late Lord Eutherford .showed the world that the idea of changing lead into gold — as dreamed by alchomTsts of old — was not so fantastic as it seemed, in a scientifie if not a commercial sense. Lord Eutherford wis one of the really great men of our time, says the writer. He will be remembercd when many who are fr-ontpage nou-s to-day are forgotten. Keporters, adds Mr Clarke, went to the lectures of thi3 modern wizard a came back in tears asking how they were to make a story for popular reading vjut of such obscurities as "atomio nucleus," "ultimato constituents, " ' ;ccntinuous radiations," and "ironised gas." Lord Eutherford refused to come down to earth to help them. He had the scientist's horr-gr of being' garbled by a lay press. He saw no' "sensations" in his technical work and refused to depart from the technical terminology of the laboratory. Here, ,in the opinion of the writer,. Lord Eutherford "was wrong, » as I think many leaders of science are still wrong, in holding aloof from the man in the street and not giving simple understandable explanations of what they are doing. After all, it is on the interest of the lay publie that the finance of research Teally depends. " Mr Clarke remembers Lord Eutherford as "a bluff, liearty fellow with n quite professional laugh, which he released for my benefit when I tried' to persuaded him to come off his ' high horse. ' " "Why," h'e roared, "you fellows would make me look silly, not because you wanted, but simply because you don't know what I'm talking about." "If I send someone who does?",.. I ventured. "Wait and see," he replied, not unkindly, I thoughti I sent in turn three people. All rieturned em|)ty-handed. It was eventHally a woman who brought me a we3 measure of success. She came one day for q job. I asked her what. she could do. Well, she had a Cambridge science degree.'" ' , ' That helped me to mention Eutherf ordj adds " Mr Clarke. . Did . she know him? Yes, she had had a spell as helper in his laboratory. I told her of my difficulty in getting him to talk for popular newspaper reading and said that if she contemplated leaving science .for journalism, here was her chance to open a door. ' . " • . , ' She pulled off quite anice little story. She got through Eutherford 's barrage, not only because he was naturally polite to the opposite sex, but also because he was ev.er . loyal to those who had worked with -him and ever ready to help them if he could. I reminded him of this incident when last I met him on the other side of the world. "Ah," he laughed, "I remember how you'beat me with a woman — but she did know what she was talkihg about, which is what most of you journalists don't." ' ■'