Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

I am a great believer in dictionaries, and that is where I turned when
Martin McGrory asked ‘What exactly is ‘charge’?’ (Letters, 11 July 1992).
Now that quarks are allotted partial charges, McGrory finds his traditional
electronic view of charge a bit shaky. Modern dictionaries, however, either
gave circular definitions (charge, see electron; electron, see charge) or
explanations of the effects of ‘charges’. This prompted me to consult Dr
Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (octavo edition, rescued
from a junk shop in The Hague for the princely sum of 10 guilders) to see
if there was any hint of this modern scientific use of the word.

The first 10 definitions concisely describe various nonscientific meanings
of ‘charge’ derived from the writings of the great, such as ‘care; trust;
custody’ and ‘precept; mandate; command’. But the last definition grabbed
my attention: ‘(In heraldry) The charge is that which is borne upon the
³¦´Ç±ô´Ç³Ü°ù.’

I was transfixed: charge and colour are two properties of quarks. Could
this be another prescient example of time-warp morphic resonance: the Nostradamus
effect so beloved of New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ readers? Following the rules of morphic
analysis, I looked at the last entry at the bottom of the same column. My
suspicions were confirmed. The last word was ‘charm – something of power
to gain the affections’. Charm: yet another property of the flavoursome
quark, together with an elegant description of nuclear power.

The final confirmation was the page number: 98. Morphic predictions
inevitably involve an invertable number, linked as they are to 666, the
number of the Beast. The probability of this occurring by chance is incalculable,
but I am sure readers will be able to draw their own conclusions on this.
Perhaps quark researchers might find further quarky insights on pages 98
or 86? What interesting insights into your own field could be hiding in
this book?

Johnson can certainly give scientific guidance to modern researchers
in other ways. For example, Ian Gordon referred to the sticky problem for
researchers choosing a spelling for synthesise/-ize (Forum, 11 May 1991).
Although Johnson did not bother to define ‘synthesise/-ize’, his definitions
of synthesis and synthetick give cross references to analysis and analytick,
where the verb ‘to analyze’ is defined as ‘to resolve a compound into its
first principles’. Researchers who believe in the ascendancy of synthesize
and analyze are therefore quite right, although logic dictates that they
must also insist on the corresponding spellings of the words ‘synthetick’
and ‘analytick’.

It is also a delight to scan through the dictionary for its definitions
which, sifted in large part from the writings of the great ‘authorities’
and for the rest furnished by Johnson himself, show an economy and elegance
lacking in many modern works. Reflect on this excerpt from his preface:
‘If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation
of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of
policy, war and navigation from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction
from Spencer and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare,
few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English words, in which
they might be expressed.’

Do we have a modern equivalent for Francis Bacon, or is the breadth
of scientific knowledge and the pace of progress too great for one man to
handle? To determine the modern or future successor to Bacon maybe morphic
name analysis (MNA) could help? MNA of course relies on resonant harmonies
in the names of great artists and scientists.

As a guide to the MNA technique, I am reminded of a morphic exchange
of views a while back in these pages on predicting the next great physicist,
based on the historic ‘unitary’ (avoirdupois) names new-ton and one-stone
(Einstein). However, this translation of Einstein was improper: a stein
is not only a stone (piece of rock), but also a beer mug, that is, a non-avoirdupois
measure of volume. Names involving weight and volume have already been dealt
with so, according to MNA, the name of the next great physicist will include
a measure of time, with some suitable prefix. If your name is Bonjour, Happyhour,
or the Japanese equivalent, get studying.

My inexperience of MNA leaves me unable to say who should be Bacon’s
successor, nor who should replace Raleigh, Hooker, Spencer, the Bible, Sidney
and Shakespeare. Names having connections with meat, bicycles, persuasive
ladies and stores look promising. However, Sidney, Shakespeare and particularly
the Bible look more tricky.

Morphic digressions apart, Johnson’s spelling and definitions for the
names of scientifick professions are worthy of attention. The ‘chymist’
will delight in his definition as ‘a professor of chymistry, a philosopher
by fire’, although perhaps vexed at playing second fiddle to the ‘alchymist’
practising ‘the more sublime chymistry, which proposes the transmutation
of metals’. But at least there is no confusion of the ‘pharmacopolist’,
‘an apothecary, one who sells medicine’, with the ‘chymist’.

The naturalist appears, as ‘a student in physiks or natural philosophy’,
while physiology is listed as ‘the doctrine of the constitution of the works
of nature’. The astronomer at least should be happy to be described as
‘one who studies the celestial motions, and the rules by which they are
governed’. The geologist too will be content with studying ‘the doctrine
of the earth’.

On the biological front, Johnson does not list bioanything, but is content
with defining botanist, ‘one skilled in plants’, together with the forgotten
zoographer, ‘one who describes the nature, properties, and forms of animals’,
as well as the cruel-sounding zootomist, ‘a dissector of the bodies of brute
²ú±ð²¹²õ³Ù²õ’.

The dictionary gives other charming scientific words that have fallen
out of use. Has nobody today a use for the delightful ‘to discandy’ (to
dissolve or to melt)? Perhaps we could revive ‘the circulatory – a chymical
vessel, wherein that which rises from the vessel on the fire, is collected
and cooled in another fixed upon it, and falls down again’, which sounds
like a type of reflux condenser.

His spelling may have been eccentric, but Johnson would certainly not
have relied like you on an electrical computer for help, indeed the very
idea would have been criminally insane. A computer was a ‘reckoner, accountant
or calculator’, and electricity was ‘a property in bodies, whereby, when
rubbed, they draw substances, emit flame, and may be fitted with such a
quantity of the electrical vapour, as, if discharged at once upon a human
body, would endanger life’. Computer science is thus obviously a murderous
branch of necromancy, namely ‘enchantment; conjuration’.

On the subject of data processing (‘data: allowed premises’; ‘processing:
methodical management of any thing’) Johnson has some appropriate definitions.
For example, anyone who has sweated trying to transfer data, might think
the description he gave to a tropical tribe as ‘those . . . who have no
shadow . . . inhabitants of the torrid zone’, provides a more apt definition
of ASCII than ‘American standard code for information interchange’.

All of which gets us back to Nostradamus. However, I prefer Johnson:
he seemed to have had a healthy respect for science, clarity and honesty.

Alan Wells is a chemical patent examiner for the European Patent Office,
The Hague.