SCIENCE AND INVENTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15252, 15 March 1913, Page 4 (Supplement)

SCIENCE AND INVENTIONS.

■..;.> ::;■■;;: :■;:;;■] ~ ♦. -— ~ BRITISH SCD3NCE ASSOCIATION. The British Association v . for ; the Advancement of Science will meet in Australia, for the - first time. August, 1914. The association has, met three times in Canada, and once in South Africa, but all the other meetings have been held in the British Isles. The Australian meeting will •include sessions at several towns. The Commonwealth Government has appointed a Federal council to arrange for the meety ing, under the patronage of the Governors General* and with the Prime Minister as i- chairman, and has granted £15,000 to pay the passage to Australia of not fewer than 150 official representatives. A number of a foreign men of science will be included in ft this number. J PICTURE TELEGRAPHY ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. Although the Berlin scientist, Dr. Korn, c is having good success in sending • photo- :. graphs by wire between stations located at i Paris,: Berlin, and Monte Carlo for use in [ press 'work, he wishes to apply his method . over a much longer distance. In' fact, it y is possible to send the photographs by mail between Paris and Berlin, for instance, in a comparatively short time, so j. that the newspape»s are not as likely to 9 take up a picture-transmitting scheme as when they are a long distance from the centre of events. For this reason he ex- '• pects to, take up the question of operating upon * the Atlantic cable, and is confident ' tfinit he will be able to send photographs across the ocean. He is also considering » the j matter of going to America in order • ip' apply the system to a line between [.' 'New York and San Francisoo. '.-'-'* J / THE FILLED MOTOR TIRE. Periodically, almost continuously, the b cellular, spongy or gelatinous tire-filling I compound which is expected to replace the air in pneumatic tires makes its ap- • pearance, floats for a moment in the public i eye, and then fades away into the future. But it must not necessarily be assumed i that such will always be the case, and ; that success in this direction never will ; be obtained. The repeated resurrection > of the idea shows the existence of a latent demand, and it is quite within the ' bounds of possibility that the demand • may - some day be filled. Already there , are several compounds on the market , which are giving a measure of success, and in them their manufacturers, or com. pounders, would seem to have eliminated many of the difficulties which at first were experienced with everything that was , supposed to take the place of air, and ' banish tire troubles for ever. i , ———— /' ELECTRIC SERVICE ACROSS THE , ALPS. Quite an extensive project is being • organised in Switzerland for- an electric automobile service across the Alps, and ' the cost of improving the roads and purchase of material is about half a million. ' The line runs from Airolo by way of the Bedretto Valley and the Nufnen Pass, , ending at Ulrichen in the Valais region, with a total length of 25 miles. Considerable work will need to be done in : enlarging the routes so as to make them suitable for automobile traffic, and a bridge is to be built over the Tessin River. The new electric automobiles have capacity for 22 passengers, and make the trip ; in' 2± hours on ordinary and If on express service, running at 12 to 22 miles an hour. There are eight to ten stations along the route, and three trips are made per day in each direction, during all seasons when there is no snow on the roads. A great success is predicted for the electric line. x , THE NEW FUEL. There is - only one illimitable fuelj and that comes from the sun's energy, said Professor Vivian B. Lewes, lecturing on . "Liquid Fuel" at the Royal Society of Arte, Adelphi. Wo should find this in the near future, when we should be left face to face with tho problem of what fuel to adopt. There was only one way to : regenerate the sun's energy to make it : available for power, and that was by al- : cohol. In vegetation we could find the : energy absorbed by the plant from the .: sun. That energy could never be regenerated as coal or oil, but as. alcohol. At present this was practically out of the ( question. Within the last few years petrol j products, it had been shown,, were an absolute necessity to modern civilisation. We i were only yet on the fringe of the im- * provements. The day would undoubtedly ' come when the supply would give out, c but it was not yet. Alluding to theories of the origin of petrol, Professor Lewes < said that, in his opinion, this was mainly ' from deposits of marine, vegetation. The ' distribution of petroleum was far wider \ than at first imagined. Traces of it had c been found even at Willesden, while the old oilfields were becoming exhausted. If ' geologists would only trace out where were ' once the shores of the big oceans, they *( would find areas which would probably 1 promise best for the finding of crude oil. LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHONES. ( ] The announcement has been made that l New York and San Frfinciscoj 3360 miles j apart, will be able next year to talk by telephone. Two discoveries make it possible to speak over a circuit so long. Pro- t fessor Michael Pupin, of Columbia College, in June, 1900, hit upon a device which be called a " loader,' 1 a coil distributed * along the telephone at regular intervals, through which the current in passing gajns force". i The possibilities of the " loader" were not comprehended at first, but time c and ingenuity worked it out 2 and then I came the discovery of the "phantom B wire," or phantom circuit. # It appeared J that.by taking two copper wires and cross- t ing them at regular intervals, all the while » running them* through the loader, a third ° circuit was mysteriously created. That is, f, not only could two telephone receivers be t used on the real wires, but a third could £ be added, making three telephones working £ simultaneously and separately on two ii strands .of copper. The New York and t Denver circuit has a length of little 'more £ than 2000 miles* that to Chicago is 950 e miles long, and the length of the St. a Louis line is 1050 , miles. Until tho *• " loaded phantoms" were discovered or de- *, veloped, the lines to the two cities named i represented the limits of telephony. The * cost of talking from New York to, San * Francisco is estimated at 70s a minute. ■ $ ■-• '-,-" fri C THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE. " Sir Walter Crookes, in an address to * Che old students of the Royal College of a . Science, said : " I was a student at the a college in 1848, a time which is now con- *' sidered the scientific dark ages. Wheat- * stone was at work on the electric tele- tl graph; Faraday was grappling with the In magneto-electric machine— of the *] modern dynamo and of electric lighting. ■*! The same great chemist was experiment- " ing in low temperatures. Frove had de- ol composed water by heat alone into its JJ constituent gases; Joule was determining b. the mechanical equivalent of heat; and c< Ebelman was making synthetic rubies. ■'<" Pasteur had already discovered and separ- „' ated dextro: and laevo-tartaric acid, « and he had started that brilliant series of *' researches on microbic life which had re- 1^ volutionised the science of medicine. In- tl directly Pasteur solved the famous me- ci diroval problem : ' How many' angels can ** stand on the point of a 'needle?' ' Alter- $ ing the word 'angels' to ' devils I have a found that, Of one of the deadliest dis- « eases that had ever scourged mankind, £{ 500 of the maleficent microbes—veritable „i devilscan without overcrowding, find tl place on the point of the finest; needle.' P 4 In those, days organic chemistry was al- {£ most unknown. To-day how great a dif- ,ni fcrence ! A chemist is no longer a mere J* analyst, but an architect and builder. If j* I may look forward I should say that the h< practical side of chemistry of the future hi will be synthetic. On the philosophic m side of chemistry I predict the greatest £] progress will be made, in inquiries into ni the constitution of matter. Even now we P< are beginning to prick the bubble of .* those variable, mysterious, and complex pi things called elements ;-J-; Science grows » and grows, and there is no -water J* level no terminal pillar marked ' Finis.'" «