1961 Fredericton Encaenia
Archibald, William James
Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
Image
Image Caption
L to R: Colin B. Mackay, William James Archibald
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Source: UA PC-4 no.9(23); Photo by Harvey Studios
Citation:
ENCAENIA, MAY, 1961
WILLIAM JAMES ARCHIBALD
to be Doctor of Science
Dr. Archibald is another Maritimer who, too late, is enrolling at U.N.B. He is a Nova Scotian, the child of Bridgetown, and at once the alumnus and the ornament of Dalhousie University.
It is a pleasure now to be presenting a physicist: his science has fewer variables to explain away. It is an honour to have once been on the same staff with this distinguished man.
When a post-doctorate fellow at Yale, he achieved an international reputation by solving an abstruse differential equation which is vital to the basic theory of the ultra centrifuge.
He is, of course, also a human being, and I understand that before entering Dalhousie he was destined for the Presbyterian ministry. Changing his mind at the end of his first year, he decided to specialize in Philosophy, but soon became unhappy because, as he said, philosophers do not start with facts and their conclusions are always ambiguous. In his third year he discovered Physics, to his own great joy and the world's greater profit.
His main relaxation is to drive his car great distances by day or night. A fellow physicist relates that when motoring with him from Halifax to Washington he was surprised to find that Archibald had little use for road maps. He had determined his course, and was largely making it good, by magnetic compass. When, however, on the return journey a financial equation involving critical values was presented by their ancient and oil-devouring Austin, Archibald forced its solution by the expedient of having both empty their pockets and of subtracting respectively from their given starting totals (which they doubtless termed x and y) the very little small change remaining each to each. Which is a signal example of the combination of the scientific with the empirical method to which this puissant science is sometimes reduced.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
WILLIAM JAMES ARCHIBALD
to be Doctor of Science
Dr. Archibald is another Maritimer who, too late, is enrolling at U.N.B. He is a Nova Scotian, the child of Bridgetown, and at once the alumnus and the ornament of Dalhousie University.
It is a pleasure now to be presenting a physicist: his science has fewer variables to explain away. It is an honour to have once been on the same staff with this distinguished man.
When a post-doctorate fellow at Yale, he achieved an international reputation by solving an abstruse differential equation which is vital to the basic theory of the ultra centrifuge.
He is, of course, also a human being, and I understand that before entering Dalhousie he was destined for the Presbyterian ministry. Changing his mind at the end of his first year, he decided to specialize in Philosophy, but soon became unhappy because, as he said, philosophers do not start with facts and their conclusions are always ambiguous. In his third year he discovered Physics, to his own great joy and the world's greater profit.
His main relaxation is to drive his car great distances by day or night. A fellow physicist relates that when motoring with him from Halifax to Washington he was surprised to find that Archibald had little use for road maps. He had determined his course, and was largely making it good, by magnetic compass. When, however, on the return journey a financial equation involving critical values was presented by their ancient and oil-devouring Austin, Archibald forced its solution by the expedient of having both empty their pockets and of subtracting respectively from their given starting totals (which they doubtless termed x and y) the very little small change remaining each to each. Which is a signal example of the combination of the scientific with the empirical method to which this puissant science is sometimes reduced.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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