William Henry Stone

“ The problems themselves are often open to comment, as partaking of the nature of enigmas, or riddles, rather than as fair tests of knowledge. Like riddles, moreover, they exercise a kind of fascination on their concocters, and are very liable to figure in papers of questions. The writer, for instance, has seen in a paper on physics a question which involved an indeterminate equation, and of which the solutions were infinite in number. ”

“ The Rotatory valve is simply a 'fourway stopcock turning in a cylindrical case in the plane of the instrument, two of its four ways forming part of the main channel, the other two, on its rotating through a quadrant of the circle, admitting the air to the bypath.' This gives great freedom of execution, but is far more expensive and liable to derangement than the Piston valve. ”

“ Even now, within an ace of thirty years from this intellectual cataclysm, poor old Oxford is only just recovering from a protracted state of vertigo, and settling down again to useful work. It is sad that she should have to chronicle the early loss of one who has been a main agent in the revolution. ”

“ They may adopt artistic or literary pursuits, they may choose the professions of law or of medicine. In all these, the attempt to reduce the subject-matter laid before them to the strict conditions of an equation or a ratio, so far from being a fruitful mental effort, may absolutely prove a hindrance. ”

“ There is a common type of mind which fails to see a proof which is not of the character of demonstration, and which, in its absence, neglects to use the faculty of judgment and decision so necessary in the common affairs of business.
The computing school, and especially those who teach its physical branches, very correctly and consistently insist upon the solving of problems as a test of thorough knowledge. ”

“ In the French Horn, indeed, from the closeness of the harmonics to one another in the part of its scale chiefly used, two valves are sufficient, depressing the note a semitone and a tone respectively. ”

“ It must be remembered, however, that, even among advanced and professed mathematicians, the faculty of solving problems is very unequally distributed—a fact which is openly recognized at the great mathematical University of Cambridge. ”

“ Englishmen, with their characteristic tenacity of existing forms, had retained all but unchanged in their large public schools and in the older universities a form of intellectual culture which really originated in the middle ages, or at the latest with the restoration of learning. ”

“ What is the 'kinetic energy' of a moving mechanical system? A shot of 1,000 pounds moving at 1,600 feet per second strikes a fixed target. How far will the shot penetrate the target exerting upon it an average pressure equal to the weight of 12,000 tons? ”

“ A solid right circular cone of homogeneous iron is 64 inches in height, and its mass is 8,192 pounds. The cone is cut by a plane perpendicular to the axis, so that the mass of the small cone removed is 686 pounds. Find the height of the center of gravity of the truncated portion remaining, above the base of the cone.
"4. A heavy body starting from rest slides down a smooth plane inclined 30° to the horizon. How many seconds will it occupy in sliding 240 feet down the plane, and what will be its velocity after traversing this distance? ”