Defenders of Democracy / Contributions from representative men and women of letters and other arts from our allies and our own country, edited by the Gift book committee of the Militia of Mercy

by Militia of Mercy . Gift Book Committee

"—becomes merely a function of pi!"

The Great Scientist paused with a laugh of triumph.

"A function of pi!" we repeated with delight.

"Precisely. Our conception of ultimate matter is reduced to that of an oblate spheroid described by the revolution of an ellipse on its own minor axis!"

"Good heavens!" we said, "merely that."

"Nothing else. And in that case any further calculation becomes a mere matter of the extraction of a root."

"How simple," we murmured.

"Is it not?" said the Professor. "In fact, I am accustomed, in talking to my class, to give them a very clear idea, by simply taking as our root F,—F being any finite constant—"

He looked at us sharply. We nodded.

"And raising F to the log of infinity;—I find they apprehend it very readily."