SCIENCE and INVENTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18281, 23 December 1922, Page 7 (Supplement)

SCIENCE and INVENTIONS.

AIR PHOTOGRAPH WONDERS.

Lecturing to the Royal Photographic Society in London, Squadron Leader F. I.'. V. Laws, of the R.A.F., slated that, whereas in 1914 it was difficult to locate dismounted troops on photographs taken from the air at any altitude above 3000 ft., it is now possible to see even birds when photographed from a distance of a mile and a half. This fact- was illustrated in a picture taken from this great height, showing the pigeons feeding on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral. EDISON'S DEAFNESS. Edison, the world famous inventor, is deaf, but. few know that his deafness is the result of a man lifting him by his ears when he was a lad of 12. breaking i'uth diaphragms. "So far from looking on my deafness as an affliction," Edison says, " I consider it a Messing. I. wouldn't be cured if 1 could, for it enables me to think better. Oddly enough, though I am ordinarily as deaf as a post, 1 can hear fairly well when I am in a noisy factory or in a train." Edison loves to go to a theatre, and says he thoroughly enjoys a play, though he is unable to hear a single word of it. STEAM TRAVELLING CRANES. Few kinds of machinery are more fascinating to watch than the huge steam cranes and excavators so widely used now-a-days on civil engineering work of various kinds. A short time ago a British firm supplied six mammoth steam cranes for port works in Morocco. Each of these cranes is capable, of lifting fifteen tons of rock at 23ft. radius. In itself i». weighs 95 tons. It can lift, its full load at 60ft. per minute and it- can travel with its full load at 100 ft. per minute. This mammoth is so ingeniously designed that the load can be. held stationary or allowed to descend at any desired speed, simply by the action of a foot brake. BRITISH PUMPS FOR THE SUDAN. A great deal of important irrigation work'is in hand in the Sudan; and British firms are playing a prominent part in the manufacture ' and installation of the powerful pumps required for such purposes. Recently a British firm secured a contract for three 45in. pumps driven, by oil engines of nearly 1000 horse power each. Each of these pumps is capable of delivering two cubic metres of water petsecond, against a maximum head of close on 26 metres when running fit 150 revolutions per minute; both engines are of the centrifugal twin series type. The contract included all the piping and auxiliary machinery, the latter consisting of two 50 horse' power oil engines for driving dynamos, motor-driven circulating water pumps, charging pumps, and compressors. ELECTRIC SHOCKS FOR HEARTS. One of the most remarkable of recent medical inventions is the static wave device. Its purpose is to regulate the beating of the heart, should it be too fast or too slow. The patient sits in an insulated chair connected with a machine which passes an electrical current through the bodv. Outside the machine is a revolving 'ball, fixed to the end of a metal rod. Every time this ball passes another stationary ball electricity is discharged from the bodv, causing i-ne muscles to relax. If the heart should bo heating 74 times a minute, but is six beats fast, the revolving ball is timed to go round at 74 revolutions a minute, and the heart is fhus slowed down to its correct time. In the same way the heart can be quickened. This wonderful machine was exhibited at a recent medical exhibition in London. The force of the current is such that a person putting his hand within six inches of the chair "receives quite "a powerful shock. NEW RADIO INVENTION. A wireless invention, which has just been tested by the Radio Corporation <n America, is described by Dr. 15. F. W. Alexanderson. the company's chief engineer, as "marking a turning point, like the steam engine or the dynamo." The new apparatus consists of what are called "electro tubes." In the test, they were used fur transmitting wireless messages from America to England. The test lasted 16 hours. Only partial success is claimed, and it is admitted that further experiments are necessary before full success can be. attained. The tiTbes, which have been under development for 10 years, can be placed in a suiter.se. Despite their small size, they are capable of transmit- ■ ing enormous power. Six tubes 'were used in the tians-Atlantio experiments, and the engineers say that it is only a question of time when a single tube will be sufficient. Complete explanation of the tube is withheld for the present. It is declared that the tubes will lead .shortly to trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, and mav eventually bo used to transmit energy hy wireless so that power generated at Niagara Falls, for instance, cotdd be used to operate machines in New York without any intermediary apparatus. BODY AS MACHINE. You are a complex and ingenious machine, fearfully and wonderfully made, If your age is 15 years or more you can be Figured up to a dot. You have 160 bones and 500 muscles; your -blood weighs 251b. : your heart is nearly five inches in length and three inches in diameter; it beats seventy times a minute, 4200 times an hour, iOO.BOO times a day, and 30,722,200 times a year. At each" beat |p little over two ounces of blood is thrown out of it: each day it receives, and discharges about seven tons of that wonderful fluid. It is the most remarkable pump in the world. Your lungs will contain a gallon of air, and you inhale 24,000 gallons a day. The aggregate air cells of your lungs, supposing them to be spread out, is 20,000 square inches. The weight of your brain is 31b., or imjo.'*. Your nerves exceed 10,000,00 Q. Your skin is composed of throe layers, and. varies from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch in thickness. The area of your skin is about 1700 square inches, and you are subjected to an atmospheric pressure of lblb. to the square inch, a total of 127 tons.' Each square inch of your skin contains 3500! sweating tubes, or perspiration pores each of which may be likened tj a "tittle drain tilo one-fourth of an inch making an aggregate length in the entire surfii.ee of your body of 201,166 feet, or a tile ditch for draining the body forty miles long. WIRELESS ON THE FINGER. A boy of 18, named Cecil Henzell, of Edmonton, claims to have built tho smallest wireless receiving set yet heard of. It is built on a finger ring which fits the lad's little finger, and was carved by him out of a solid piece of walnut. The mount is in two pieces, the surface measuring about half an inch square. The contacts for securing the wave lengths are formed of tiny pins, with a small brass lever. A tiny speck of galena forms the crystal cup. and a minute gold wire the "cat's whisker." The aerial is in tho form of a body belt wrapped round the waist, and a ground wire is worn down the trouser leg, which is perfectly satisfactory so long as the operator stands on damp ground. Otherwise the usual type of ground wire is used, but the hoy [liven ter is at work on a plan to enable him to use his concealed ground wire at all times, thus making the set absolutely selfcontained. Five people at once heard quite clearly a concert broadcast recently by the Edmonton Journal, though the boy's home is five miles from the broadcasting station. Young Henzcll, who is a jeweller's apprentice by trade, first of all made a receiving set that fitted the case of an ordinary-sized watch. Realising that he could secure equally good results with an even smaller set, lie decided upon the ring, and this tiny set receives short-di&tance messages with the utmost ' claritj.