Physics Lecturer From U.S. Arrives

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29745, 12 February 1962, Page 13

Physics Lecturer From U.S. Arrives

Meteors and upper-air physics are the main interests of Mr S. H. Neff, a Harvard graduate who has arrived to take up a lectureship in physics at the University of Canterbury.

His' work on meteors at Harvard was carried out in a basement far removed from any actual observation of the meteors or their associated phenomena. "One of the reasons I came hejp was to make such direct observations,” he said yesterday. At Harvard, he explained, he simulated what he believed might happen when meteors entered the atmosphere. He injected a beam of ions of the elements of which he thought the meteors were composed into a chamber containing nitrogen, the main component of the atmosphere at the height in question. The beam travelled at the general rate of the meteors. "The spectra produced in this way corresponded fairly well with observed meteorite spectra," he added. Those in which he was interested were the cometary meteors, associated with or derived from comets. These meteors were small and travelled very fast so they always burnt out at a great height. They were the shower meteors which occupied certain orbits round the sun. and became visible when their orbits intersected the earth's orbit. They were quite distinct from the asteroidal meteors, w’hich sometimes reached the surface of the earth as meteorites.

At the university, Mr Neff hopes to trace the effects of the cometary meteors through the ionisation they produce in the upper atmosphere. This may be done through radio observations. One of his fields of interest is the aurora, which may also be observed by radio means. Mr Neff's first contact with Christchurch was through correspondence with Mr G. A. F. King, of the Geophysical Observatory, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Mrs Neff, who has arrived with Mr Neff, is no stranger to the city. She was here in 1953-54 for several months

when her father. Professor J. Havighurst, of the University of Chicago School of Education, was at the University of Canterbury on a Fulbright grant. The couple are at present staying at the home of Professor and Mrs H. E. Field, with whom Mr and Mrs Havighurst had many links during their stay.