BRITAIN LEADS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3715, 19 October 1926, Page 7

BRITAIN LEADS

PROGRESS OF LENS SCIENCE WONDERFUL WORK An optical convention was held in London recently, under the presidency of the Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, at which British progress in optics was very forcibly demonstrated. Before the war England imported 90 per cent, of her glass from Germany and France, and made the other 10 per cent, at home. But the war stopped this, with the result that by 1917 Britain and her Allies were able to obtain as much as they required. There are many marked improvements in the microscope, such as the great development of the illuminator, object glass, and the stand holding the optical parts in their relative positions. Apochromatic object glasses are superior to those made in any other country, and many people working with microscopes are installing these new lenses in favor of the foreign ones. The Royal Air Force cameras installed the new lenses made in England and found a slight but distinct change, and they have used only British lenses since, in preference to those made abroad. 48,000 A SECOND. British-made cinematograph machines have also improved tremendously, and it is now possible to photograph and reproduce what takes place when a bullet pierces armorplate, and with the use of a new projector, by which it is possible to take 48,000 pictures a second, projectiles may, on Urn screen, bo seen hurtling through the air. At present all the best long-distance projectors are British made. The excellent quality of British-made compasses is shown by this instance; Amundsen’s polar airship, the Norge, had installed a foreign compass, but this proving a failure during the voyage, Amundsen, on arrival at Pulliam, telephoned to the makers urgently requesting them to send an aperiodic steering compass, which had to be taken from the exhibition to meet his requirements. American films arc shown all over the world, but British cameras project these in most cases, and a definite superiority may be claimed in this respect. As is mentioned, the British make the best long-distance cameras; but to project long distances it is necessary to have special lenses, and this need has been met with by British makers, who have introduced the best and most light-transmitting cinema projection lenses yet made.

The best camera lenses in photography are made in England, and have no serious competitors; the telephoto lens also originated in England, and was greatly used during the test matches between England and Australia. NEW SIGNAL LIGHTS. All the railways of England use two lights, red for “ danger ” and green for “safety.” But it is now necessary to use another color as well for the “distant” signal. It was very difficult to obtain a color distinguishable from red and green, but at last a British lirm has produced a moderately deep orange for the “distant,” and this is as nearly as possible the ideal. In a fog it is possible easily to distinguish this color from green, since the deep orange then looks more of a red. Since 1912, when the last convention was held, great strides in the ophthal-mic-opticfl industry have been made, which were clearly noticed. Many firms recently established have shown undoubted excellence in their products, which have readily found sale in foreign countries as well as at home. Many types and kinds of optical instruments wore exhibited in the Optical Convention, and numerous linns havo since reported a. satisfactory sale as a result of their participation in the convention. It was in 1919 that the manufacture of ophthalmic lenses on a large scale was sol on loot, and the success with which this has since met was enormous.