
“Mathematicians will do well to observe that”
"The Mathematical Theory of the Top" (April 8, 1898)
Context: Mathematicians will do well to observe that a reasonable acquaintance with theoretical physics at its present stage of development, to mention only such broad subjects as electricity, elastics, hydrodynamics, etc., is as much as most of us can keep permanently assimilated. It should also be remembered that the step from the formal elegance of theory to the brute arithmetic of the special case is always humiliating, and that this labor usually falls to the lot of the physicist.