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SCIENCE TACKLES THE EVIL OF NOISE

The first house-full notice of the British Association was put up outside Professor G. W. C. Kay’s lecture on “Noise and the Nation,” says a recent “News Chrnoicle.” Those who came to hear how we can eliminate this curse of modern life heard little more thai> N t.hat the scientist has taken the first step—by devising a unit for measuring the noisiness of noise.

This unit is the phon-. If there are 60 phons of noise going on, you can talk in comfort; if 90 phons, you must shout; if 110 phons, you had better give up.

In a quiet city street there are always 40 phons; in your local train, with window open, 50 phons; in an express train, 80; in an office with busy typists, 90; in the Tube, 100; and near an aeroplane, 120. To reduce railway noises, we must have long rails with fewer joints, or, beter still, monocars with pneumatic tyres and permanently-closed double windows.

On- the Underground they sent a special train over the rails to grind them free of dents and humps. No one can see the solution for the growing nuisance of aeroplane noises —and the motor cycle is the greatest offender on earth.

A 90-phon car is the loudest that ought to be tolerated. Let us hope the time will come when advertisements claim that a given car goes 80 phons rather than 80 miles an hour. 1 Hitler and Hypnosis.

Meanwhile, the psychologists were startled by Dr. William Brown, who during the war, treated by hypnotism 5000 soldiers on the Somme for loss of memory.

“Hitler,” said Dr, Brown, “will go down to history as the greatest psycho-therapist the world has

ever known.”

Dr, Brown’s own work is with undergraduates who, under hypnosis, see a Suggested picture when a blank paper is handed them, and, if told there are only five people in the room when six are present, cannot see the sixth person.

“There can be no doubt,” said Dr. Brown, “that the methods adopted in Germany and Italy, of attaining efficiency as a nation under individual leadership, find a great deal of support in modem psychology. “It is a mistake to suppose that the followers in these countries are slaves. “Rather do their own, self-assertive and aggressive tendencies become liberated in the and their confidence in their leader makes what might have been a timid, panic-stricken crowd into a powerful army, race or nation.”

Effects of Migration. More technical matter was considered by the zoologists and botanists. In a discussion on genetics, Professor F. A, E. Crew looked forward to a time when an understanding of how 7 chromosomes behaved would lead to our being able to design, and produce, new forms

of life. Other speakers described the amazing advances of recent years in mapping the exact invisible spot in each chromosome, which wste responsible for each of thousands of inheritable characteristics.

Professor C. B, Fawcett exploded the | imperialistic nonsense about filling up |the great open spaces. : “The net effect of the great migrations of the 19th and 20th centuries has been to add a fourth to thS major population regions, and then to increase the numbers of the peoples within these four major regions. “They have not tended to spread population more evenly over the lands of the earth, but rather to accentuate the crowding of mankind into the already populous lands,” he said. This will continue in the future, and the three leaders of humanity will still be Western Europe, Eastern North Am erica and China. Before the Nottingham business men at lunch-time, Sir Richard Gregory, F.R.S., said that the view that the sole of science is the discovery of natural facts, without regard to their social implication, had gone. Science Cannot Stand Aside. “Science cannot be divorced from ethics, or absolve itself from human responsibilities in the application of its discoveries to destructive purposes

in war dr economic disturbances in times of peace. “Men of science can no longer stand aside from the social and political questions involved in the structure which has been built up from the materials provided by them. “It is their duty ot assist in the establishment of a rational and harmonious social order.” The speakers in the Economic Section this morning showed no . sign or agreement with Sir Richard. In the Education Section, Miss Elsie V. Parker, an elementary school, teacher, spoke her mind. “Our system of public education fails to provide that equality of educational opportunity which is essential to the social stability of the comi munity,” she said. “So long as our educational system is a class system, little can be done to train children for service to the community.”

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NA19371229.2.3.9

Bibliographic details

Northern Advocate, 29 December 1937, Page 2

Word Count
788

SCIENCE TACKLES THE EVIL OF NOISE Northern Advocate, 29 December 1937, Page 2

SCIENCE TACKLES THE EVIL OF NOISE Northern Advocate, 29 December 1937, Page 2

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