Show physicists measure world Po giess 8 n science of physics will have more influence than election they say meet in new york to discuss furuie e in industry A i 4 lor KV by WILLIAM C UTLEY ITH the storm clouds of WITH wany war ready to break almost any time over europe mil hons lions of americans are wor crying about impending conflict and how we shall stay out of it in the election just over more than 40 mil hons bons traveled to the polls in all kinds of weather after having talked of almost nothing but poll tics for months the dionne quin quill and the stork derby in canada have been front page news for goodness knows how long yet the general public has given little thought to a force that may have been more important than any of these things the science of physics its influence has far exceeded that of wars political alignments or social theories s says dr karl T compton president of the mas institute of technology and one of the guiding spirits of the american institute of physics which met in new york city re bently in th last fifty years physics has exert exerted d a more powerful beneficial influence on the intellectual eco and social life of the world than has been exerted in a corn com parable time by any other agency in history says dr compton the ral revolutionist of modern civilization is a physicist he is largely responsible for the airplane engines telephones talking movies and a thousand other advancements that have changed our lives so much in the last fw decades physicist aids medicine physics deals with energy heat motion electricity light sound the bases for most industries and for everyday living it is the physicist who changes light into electricity with the photo el electric atric cell the physicist who elim mates noise in broadcasting stations and vibration from buildings and engines the physicist who measures the force of an earthquake or the severity of the weather the cist who sounds the sa with echoes and makes it possible to probe the universe for some new and distant star the physicist provides the facts upon which engineers build lofty towers his measurements make possible the application of medicine to heart beats brain waves and the structure of life itself dr compton declared that the crying need was for funds with which the physicist may carry on his work suggesting federal ampro privations pnat ions in national just as in industrial expenditures some substantial por tion should be devoted to th tha 9 at tempt to improve the products processes and methods of tho fu ture huge expenditures for con st ruction and production only with no provision for research and de aimed at better con construe tort and new production in the future are woefully short sighted he said treatment of cancer some of the most promising promising fu ture developments of physics should be of interest to everyone for thy 11 Y are in the field of medicine says dr compton the treatment of can still leaves much to be desired but physics mad possible its treat ment by neutrons now offer interesting possibilities for the future just now showing its real value is another use of physics in medi cine the employment of high fre quency radiation to create artificial fear lately it has been found pos sible to cure dogs from rabies by raising their temperatures to a point which will not kill the dogs but will kill the organisms of the dis ease re recent reent ent developments in the e P of physics are as varied as 1 t ire vaccinating ftc mating for instance 1 D 0 pilla of new york city 4 i cw method of studying i fl 0 o c iario ahon i of ru rons upon hu f w Y E physics exerts a more powerful influence than war 7 I 1 dr karl T compton i man tissues in the treatment of can he has designed a chamber the inner walls of which may be lined with the skin bone muscle or tumor which is being studied even the contour of the living test object can be simulated lat late discoveries in the research of atomic atomic nuclei may equal the strides made possible by the dis co veries of the X ray radiotherapy and the electron in the recent past in the opinion of dr compton during the past third of a cen tury h said the discoveries of the X ray and radioactivity have together brought about the greatest advances which have ever been made in the fundamental knowledge of the physical world and in application of this knowledge to human welfare these developments will undoubtedly continue it may be well that the new fields of knowledge disclosed through exploration of the atomic nucleus may bring about a new set of developments of corresponding importance before this century comes to a close hear magnets hiss one of the most dramatic pres of the atomic nuclei was made in new york by dr R M bozorth H allowed the assembled scientists to hear tiny magnets in side metal turn over and hiss and then magnified that hiss to a mag ent roar in the last ten years he told them research has in creased by eight times th ease with which iron responds to mag dr bozorth s tiny internal mag nets are caus caused d by the operation cooperation of blocks of million billion atoms which could form a cube about a thousandth of an inch on a side each atom within the unit which physicians call an atomic domain is magnetic because its electrons revolve about the atom nucleus but the domain consists of atoms so rotating that their magnetic poles are all in the same direction if an opposing magnetic force is brought into the neighborhood of these inner magnets they will turn over as a unit and emit a click in an electrical circuit hundreds of these clicks each second turn into the continuous hiss known as the barkhausen effect that is what the audience heard perhaps all this sounds merely like a good parlor trick yet it is of tremendous importance to everyone and that mans m ans thousands en in business evry day who uses the long distance telephone be cause very weak signals can be utilized and amplified by relays to carry on the to greater distance reprimand from youth but the scientists pondering the nuclei of atoms were destined to have a bombshell thrown into their midst by john ely burchard youth ful scientist and vice president of an industrial concern specializing in prefabricated dwellings he threw at them the words of grosvenor atterbury dean of the workers in his field I 1 what really interests us most vitally today Is it the discovery that my umbrella if projected d through space at sufficient velocity will actual actuality lly become shorter until if ems eins em ein s theory is what it is cracked up to be it will disappear altogether scarcely I 1 can lose um brellis fast enough as it is now we are spending millions to build inch telescopes to scan the universe and determine wh whether ther it is getting measurably smaller or in calculably greater all of which in the present state of the realm seems brilliantly useless especially the grizzled soldier left and his millions of counterparts have less influence on the world than the young physicists right trying to split the atom says dr karl T compton center when you consider the millions who cannot afford decent homes because none of our great minds has ever been focused on the basic everyday problem of human shelter science n seeds eds an intelligent board of di rectors with a small amount of such brains as are now focused on the speed with which the neutron pen strates the nucleus of the atom and only 2 or 3 per cent of the money now devoted to research in to the living conditions at the dawn of history the cost of the poor man s housing today could b cut in half another of the outstanding con of the science of physics to industrial progress lies in the quelling of vibration dr J P den hartog associate professor of ap plied mechanics at harvard sity told the meeting in new york dr den bartog cited the improve ments in the elimination of bibra tion from flying machines since the scare in 1929 when vibration de strayed the shafts of four of the five engines of the graf zeppelin dur ing a gale over france A device has now been made which gives the motor sha shafts f ts counter vibrators whose shocks balance the ones normally supplied by the motor vibrations are problem the new high sped locomotives of the railroads also developed their vibration problems he pointed out they got the habit of nosing or swaying violently from side to side as they swept down the tracks the physicists solved this ilus one with the the aid of the toy manufacturers in working out the problem a six inch long electric locomotive dally made by one of the makers of toy trains was used the springs and d weight were re distributed d un til the vibration problem was solved the I 1 singing of telephone and power cables in the wind was an other puzzle of vibration eventa ally solved when t telephone wires broke under the strain it was only as serious as the maintenance nee essary to repair them but let elec tri trie c power cables break and many persons might suddenly aly be exposed to the danger of electrocution the metal industry owes much to the science of physics locating the presence of mineral ores under ground is strictly a case of applied physics two scientists told the meet ing and it is not much different from the old days of panning for gold either absent blinded minded professor in the separation of ores by th flotation process the phenomena of physics known as surface tension and adhesion are widely used it has ben found the scientists said that certain minerals mainly of the sulphide class have a greater ad hesion for a gas bubble or for oil than they have for water many gangue rocks like silica have a greater affinity for water than the gas bubbles s thus if a mixture of gangue rocks and sulphide is churned up with a suitable bubbly flotation froth the heavier sulphide pieces will paradoxically float dr paul D foote director of research for an oil company chided the me meeting meting ting for not giving more attention to the problem of thin films in lubricants and the question of high strength but thin layers of oil to protect moving parts in ma chinery T many of you he said will not be able to devote much attention to this interesting branch of physics in spite of tte the fact that it assumes such an important rol in your daily lives perhaps after all it is un necessary to worry over corn com details why not play safe and follow the precautionary ex ample of the absent minded pro fessor who changed his oil every day and his shirt every miles western new aex a un on |