[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle].
Title
[Letter to George F. FitzGerald from Thomas R. Lyle].
Creator
Identifier
GFF 20/5
Description
Handwritten letter from Thomas R. Lyle, the University of Melbourne, to George F. Fitzgerald, dated 13 June with no year listed. Lyle discusses a paper he is sending alongside this letter and some of his other work he has been doing. 2pp.
Transcription:
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald
I was greatly pleased at getting your letter a fortnight ago. After I had posted that paper to you I often wished I had it back as it seemed a small thing to be finding out other peoples errors. I have never felt any great desire to publish things unless I felt sure they were very good but your letter had some affect as commenced to put together some things I have known for years and in doing so other things came into my mind and a fairly lengthy paper is the result which I forward to you by this mail.
The ides in the paper I have had for many years, even before I came out here, but I was not as much interested then in alternating currents as I was in quaternions. It seemed so obvious to one who knew even the merest smattering of quaternions to apply the first principles of them to simplify the manipulation of the diagram used for graphically working out about harmonic currents. That paper I criticised appeared at this time of time of day seemed to me to point to the fact that these things are not as well known as I thought and your letter started me in earnest.
Will you look through the paper I send and if you think it good enough get it published if you can, soon in some journal, the Phil mag, in preference or give it to any society.
I think it may be useful, even to practical men for the only unusual thing I put forward is the unit vector though I don't call it that. I have tried my best to put it simply. Some of the examples I give are I think new and all are I think solved very much shorted than they could be by any other method. I could have increased the bulk of the paper by some more interesting examples but I think I have given enough to show the convenience and power of the method. I have looked everywhere I can to find whether anyone has ever applied the same method to the alternate current diagram but could not find that anyone had done so. Oliver Heaviside has a paper on Resistance and Conductance operation in the Phil mag. Dec 1887, but his operations are differential and he defines them as such. Of course his R+L(d/dt) is practically the same as part of what I use (he requires two), but I think there is a great advantage in being able to realise my operation as a motion in space of something instead of working with a mere abstraction that is known to conform to certain laws.
I made no reference to this paper (it deals of very different things to mine) though I felt I ought to but did not know what to say. If you think the paper goof enough to publish and you think some reference should be made to Oliver Heaviside I will be very grateful if you put in a suitable foot note.
Sometime ago I was looking into the theory of rotating field motors. I think I can put it neatly and I may make a short paper of what I have already done.
You must not think I am idle out here because I have not published anything. My duties take up nearly all my time and I have always felt that I ought to do my best for the students and the place. One can get no assistance here. Very rarely will a student work in the laboratory after his degree. Everyone wants to be off making money.
I hope you do not think me too great a bother sending this paper to you
Yours very sincerely,
Thomas R. Lyle
Transcription:
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald
I was greatly pleased at getting your letter a fortnight ago. After I had posted that paper to you I often wished I had it back as it seemed a small thing to be finding out other peoples errors. I have never felt any great desire to publish things unless I felt sure they were very good but your letter had some affect as commenced to put together some things I have known for years and in doing so other things came into my mind and a fairly lengthy paper is the result which I forward to you by this mail.
The ides in the paper I have had for many years, even before I came out here, but I was not as much interested then in alternating currents as I was in quaternions. It seemed so obvious to one who knew even the merest smattering of quaternions to apply the first principles of them to simplify the manipulation of the diagram used for graphically working out about harmonic currents. That paper I criticised appeared at this time of time of day seemed to me to point to the fact that these things are not as well known as I thought and your letter started me in earnest.
Will you look through the paper I send and if you think it good enough get it published if you can, soon in some journal, the Phil mag, in preference or give it to any society.
I think it may be useful, even to practical men for the only unusual thing I put forward is the unit vector though I don't call it that. I have tried my best to put it simply. Some of the examples I give are I think new and all are I think solved very much shorted than they could be by any other method. I could have increased the bulk of the paper by some more interesting examples but I think I have given enough to show the convenience and power of the method. I have looked everywhere I can to find whether anyone has ever applied the same method to the alternate current diagram but could not find that anyone had done so. Oliver Heaviside has a paper on Resistance and Conductance operation in the Phil mag. Dec 1887, but his operations are differential and he defines them as such. Of course his R+L(d/dt) is practically the same as part of what I use (he requires two), but I think there is a great advantage in being able to realise my operation as a motion in space of something instead of working with a mere abstraction that is known to conform to certain laws.
I made no reference to this paper (it deals of very different things to mine) though I felt I ought to but did not know what to say. If you think the paper goof enough to publish and you think some reference should be made to Oliver Heaviside I will be very grateful if you put in a suitable foot note.
Sometime ago I was looking into the theory of rotating field motors. I think I can put it neatly and I may make a short paper of what I have already done.
You must not think I am idle out here because I have not published anything. My duties take up nearly all my time and I have always felt that I ought to do my best for the students and the place. One can get no assistance here. Very rarely will a student work in the laboratory after his degree. Everyone wants to be off making money.
I hope you do not think me too great a bother sending this paper to you
Yours very sincerely,
Thomas R. Lyle
Source
RDS Library & Archives 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, accessed October 22, 2024, https://digitalarchive.rds.ie/items/show/1393.