RESEARCH IN PHYSICS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21803, 18 May 1934, Page 9

RESEARCH IN PHYSICS

WORLD EFFORTS REVIEWED LORD RUTHERFORD'S GENIUS £BT TELEGBA.PH —OWN CORRESPONDENT]; WELLINGTON, Thursday A survey of tlie organisation of physics in the principal countries of the world was given by Professor P. W. Burbidge, professor of physics at Auckland University College, in an address delivered to the Royal Society of NewZealand to-day. Professor Burbidgo said that on a recent tour he took the opportunity of visiting Australia, England, Germany, Holland, Canada and the United Sta.tes of America.

In England, the Cavendish Laboratory undoubtedly held the pre-eminent} position, due to the genius and administrative ability of the greatest living experimental scientist, Lord Rutherford, who would, in history, he thought, rank with Faraday, by reason of his fundamental discoveries on the a. atom. In the University of London,*" the most prominent work was on wireless and optics, and a growing low temperature school existed at Oxford, where considerable reinforcement had occurred from German physicists such as Schroedlinger and Simon. In Germany the ranks of physicists had been depleted of most of the leading men, and the immediate future seemed likely to be much less productive than the past. Holland did vigorous spectroscopic research, while a large and interesting low temperature school existed in London, where the lowest temperature yet attained had recently been measured, .05 degrees above absolute zero.

In Russia, judging from printed and verbal reports, there was under the new economic developments a swing- to.I' the applied side, emphasis being placed on technological aspects rather than on pure science. The larger United States laboratories enjoyed big incomes, and had an enormous number of research workers. Apart from a few good men, however, tbev seemed to him to lack the quality of the brains in the older countries. The generation of extremely high voltages up to 10,000,000 volts, the application of such voltages to accelerating charged particles ana extensive investigation of cosmic rays were outstanding recent physical achievements in the United States, although these were probably overshadowed by chemists' discovery of heavy hydrogen. In practical astronomy and astrophysics, the United States led the world', owing to their magnificent equipment/, and in seismology there was outstanding research in California. Viewing; the developments generally in the various countries, Professor Bur-"J bidge added that one noted n, growth in research on applied physics and in the matter of the methods of experiments, and in consequence, a tendency to team w°rk to cope with the varied technique required.