Einstein and Eiby

News of impending power cuts did not force the officials of the Maths and Physics into postponing their first gathering for 1947. This optimism was only to be expected; a paper on "Time" at any time would be timely, but when the reader was to be none other than Mr. George Eiby, well!—supper, at any rate, would be at a premium, not to mention seating.

Mr. Eiby first stressed the difficult nature of his subject, exemplifying his stresses with an anecdote all the way from France. It seems that at a recent continental congress, scientists were loathe to discuss time, claiming that it belonged to the Astronomer Royal. Undaunted however, George in clean, confident and authoritative tones made the subject sound suspiciously simple. He often referred to his visit to Greenwich, possibly to prove his ability to lecture us on time units, astronomy, sidereal days and short clocks. We were particularly interested to note that the second has been a fundamental unit from Gallileo's time to ours, and is fixed in a relative way, by a pendulum, "swinging on a star" near the first point of Aries. (Apologies to Eiby, Einstein and Cole Porter.)

When George came to clocks he soon had us wound up in all sorts of intricate mechanisms, and to bring us back to earth (some of us being still at the first point of Aries) he ordered the lights to be switched off and then projected a diagram of the universal short clock on to the near wall. George, now elevated to desk height, proceeded to trace the complicated circuit until—whoops, a fault appeared in George's X-Y plane, and the said George bounced towards the bevy of lecturers drowsing nearby. Fortunately, competition between Newton's Four Laws brought George to rest a whisker's length from Doc. Campbell. Initial positions were soon regained by all, and George pressed on regardless until suddenly the short clock, and the shady impressions of George vanished, Wot!—No kilo-watts?

After a whispered discussion, the committee decided to bow to Mr. Eiby's eagerness to resume his dissertation. Twenty minutes later, vice-president King stumbled in with news of a successful ignition of a candle in C3 but George apparently believing that some things are better heard, not seen, prayed to be allowed to continue with everyone in the dark.

Eventually the meeting closed and everyone groped along to the bunsen-lighted Phizz 1 lab where Prof. Florence and his daughter were found midst pots of tea and plates of cakes.