[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle],
Title
[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle],
Creator
Date
Identifier
GFF 20/11
Description
Handwritten letter from Thomas R. Lyle, The University of Melbourne, to George F. Fitzgerald, dated 28 November 1898. Lyle discusses a recent paper publication and considers some advice on publications given to him by Fitzgerald. 2pp.
Transcription:
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald, I received your kind letter this morning and feel very much indebted to you for the trouble you have taken with my paper. I saw the first number of it in the "Electrician" a fortnight ago and was much pleased with the editorial notice about it. I had scarcely hoped that it was really a new method but it seems likely that I may get the credit for originating it at any rate in its application to the class of questions I treated. I will think about what you say in regard to writing something more mathematical on the same subject but I am at present very busy in my off time (which is very minimal) with a paper on the rotating field motor. I have the work nearly finished but none of the paper written. I can do the thing very simply and neatly and I think you will be pleased with it. Apart from the results I got being likely to be of value to practical electricians the paper will be fairly good from an elementary mathematical point of view. I will impose it on you first when I get it finished but it will be some time yet as I will be very busy with examining and other work right up to Xmas. I have got a years leave and hope to see you all in Dublin about April. They give us a year in every 8 n q here provided we arrange for an [?] substitutes spending at least half our salaries in doing so. In view of my going home I asked the Government for £750 to spend on apparatus while there which they kindly gave me. I think your advice is right that it is not worth while riding an idea to death in papers. Everyone who can appreciate the paper can apply its methods to examples for themselves. I don't know what to say about your suggestion to write a book on alternating currents. I will think over it seriously. I don't mind at all whether it would pay or not if i could put together a respectable thing. It would not be difficult to improve on most of those I have seen and I have already collected or thought of sufficient matter on the subject to make a good sized book. I am very much behind however in the bibliography of the subject. That of course would have to be thoroughly gone into first and it might prove very difficult to get everything out here.
What fate befell a short paper I sent you a long time ago on Wheatstone's Bridge. I wish you would if you can prevent its being published anywhere as the same thing is done much better in the last paper and in it (the last) I am not finding fault with another man as I was in the first.
Wishing you a merry Xmas
Yours very sincerely
Thomas R. Lyle
Transcription:
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald, I received your kind letter this morning and feel very much indebted to you for the trouble you have taken with my paper. I saw the first number of it in the "Electrician" a fortnight ago and was much pleased with the editorial notice about it. I had scarcely hoped that it was really a new method but it seems likely that I may get the credit for originating it at any rate in its application to the class of questions I treated. I will think about what you say in regard to writing something more mathematical on the same subject but I am at present very busy in my off time (which is very minimal) with a paper on the rotating field motor. I have the work nearly finished but none of the paper written. I can do the thing very simply and neatly and I think you will be pleased with it. Apart from the results I got being likely to be of value to practical electricians the paper will be fairly good from an elementary mathematical point of view. I will impose it on you first when I get it finished but it will be some time yet as I will be very busy with examining and other work right up to Xmas. I have got a years leave and hope to see you all in Dublin about April. They give us a year in every 8 n q here provided we arrange for an [?] substitutes spending at least half our salaries in doing so. In view of my going home I asked the Government for £750 to spend on apparatus while there which they kindly gave me. I think your advice is right that it is not worth while riding an idea to death in papers. Everyone who can appreciate the paper can apply its methods to examples for themselves. I don't know what to say about your suggestion to write a book on alternating currents. I will think over it seriously. I don't mind at all whether it would pay or not if i could put together a respectable thing. It would not be difficult to improve on most of those I have seen and I have already collected or thought of sufficient matter on the subject to make a good sized book. I am very much behind however in the bibliography of the subject. That of course would have to be thoroughly gone into first and it might prove very difficult to get everything out here.
What fate befell a short paper I sent you a long time ago on Wheatstone's Bridge. I wish you would if you can prevent its being published anywhere as the same thing is done much better in the last paper and in it (the last) I am not finding fault with another man as I was in the first.
Wishing you a merry Xmas
Yours very sincerely
Thomas R. Lyle
Source
RDS Library & Archive GFF collection of letters
Contributor
Rights
Copyright RDS Library & Archives. Publication, transmission or display is prohibited without formal written approval of the RDS Library & Archives.
Relation
RDS Science Archive
Format
Manuscript
Language
English
Type
Coverage
1870-1901
Collection
Citation
Lyle, Thomas R. 1860-1944, “[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle],,” RDS Digital Archive, accessed June 16, 2025, https://digitalarchive.rds.ie/items/show/1363.