SCIENCE NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18323, 13 August 1921, Page 7

SCIENCE NOTES

DEVELOPMENTS AND .THEORIES. WIRELESS TELEPHONY. CFbom Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 21. An experiment in wireless telephony was parried out in,Berlin last week. On me stage of the Opera House microphones were placed ;whioh transmitted “Madame Buttertly” by telephone to the great wireless station at Koenigswueterhausen, 15 miles south-east of Berlin. From there Puccini's masterpiece wae sent by wireless ’phones to all the big wireless stations on the Continent. These stations were informed beforehand. and it is believed that the opera was heard very distinctly within a radius of 800 miles. The experiment was carried out by the telegraph authorities, under the direction of the well-known wireless expert, Count Arco. The Government proposes to take up the matter seriously, intending to make it possible for concerts and operas given in Berlin and other cities to be reproduced in any other town. Count Arco thinks wireless telephony with America will be possible by the autumn, and that soon the Japanese in Tokio will be able to listen io opera given in Berlin. While the Arundel Castle, carrying General Smuts to the Imperial Conference, was in the Bay' of Biscay, the High Commissioner for South Africa got in touch with the vessel by wireless telephony. Amongst a number of messages, Mr Winston Churchill sent the following:—“I am very pleased to welcome you to England, and trust you have had a pleasant journey. Mrs Churchill and I hope you will be able to dine with us on July 5.” General Smuts replied a little later by the Arundel Castle's wireless telegraph apparatus—the wireless telephone transmitting apparatus not yet being installed on the ship—accepting the invitations to dinner for himself and Sir Thomas Smartt. Five sets of telephones wore employed on board the Arundel Castle for receiving the telephoned message.

ECHOES FROM ICEBERGS. Dr C. V. Drysdale, Scientific Director of Admiralty Research, lecturing at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said that directional wireless had proved a useful method of enabling a ship to find its bearings with reference to two or more stations. The device of submarine sound ranging comprised two methods. In one, which was called “multiple station” sound ranging, an explosive charge was dropped from the ship, and the position located from a shore station by the difference in times of arrival of the sound at receivers near the shore. The position was worked out from these observations, and could be signalled to the ship. An alternative method was wireless acoustic sound ranging, in which a ship could determine its position relative to a single fixed station if that station sent out wireless and sound impulses simultaneously. The distance from the station was determined by the time between the reception of the two impulses, and the direction could be found either by the directional wireless receiver or by a directional hydrophone. For the navigation of harbours and channels in fogs leader gear had been devised, consisting of laying a submarine cable along the channel and feeding it with alternating current. The ship was provided with two coils on the two sides, connected successively to an amplifier and telephone set. The current was interrupted to form signals, and these signals could be heard on the ship’s telephones, being stronger on the side on which the cable lay. It had already been found possible to follow a cable for a distance of 30 to 40 miles full speed with considerable accuracy, and tc keep at a fairly definite distance on one ride of it, so that outgoing and incoming ships would be able to pass without collision. As regards the avoidance of obstacles, such as icebergs, the most promising method appears to bo by acoustic echo, and devices had been developed which enabled powerful beams of sound to be sent out and echoes received from objects at. considerable distance. Experiments had not yet been made with this device upon icebergs, but the success obtained with them in the detection of other obstacles led to the hope that they might solve the iceberg danger. BRITISH COLOUR FILMS. Mr Claude Fnese-Greene, son ot the late inventor ut kinematograpby, has produced a remarkable new senes of films token in natural colour. The Daily Express kinema correspondent says that these Elms properly turned out under lirst-class laboratory conditions, will be as good as any put on the market, not excluding even the Pnzmaooloured linns from America. “One impressive picture,” the writer goes on to say, “showed a glass bowl containing water into which various dyes were slowly dropped. Another showed Trafalgar Square in the full tide of traffic, with many well marked colourings, such as those on the motor omnibuses, strongly brought out. 1 here were pictures of gorgeous butterflies, a run with the West Sussex Hounds, and a long series of flowers, including roses, calceolarias, cinerarias, geraniums, and tulips. A certain amount of “fringing” was unavoidable under the conditions of projection. There was also a scene that introduced the full chromatic scale. These ■films can be produced at a cost of about fcne fanning per foot more than ordinary ilack-and-white films, and there is only one variation from the usual printing process. Ihey can bo shown through any ordinary irojector, us the colours are all embodied n the completed film.” Almost the last words that the late Mr Friese-Greene said ;o his son, were: ‘T am glad that 1 have ived to see the completion of a British irocoss in coloured kinematography.” One :an only hope that Mr Claude Friesoiieeno's commercial instinct is more itrongly developed than was that of his ather, who made millions for others, and lied almost in want.

ATMOSPHERIC ‘’STEAM ENGINE.” Sir Napier Shaw, Professor of Meteoroogy, Imperial College of Science and technology, in the annual Rede lecture at Jciniunuge, compared the atmosphere to a freat steam engine. The boiler of the

itmospncre was the warm suriace of earth rid sea, the condenser some cold surfaces n the Polar regions and tho great mounams, but principally the cold regions of he upper air. The fly-wheel was made up lartly of the normal winds and partly of lie semi-permanent winds of cyclonic de ; ' iressions. The normal winds grouped hemselves into two great circulations—on mo hand, a great circumpolar circulation n tho upper air in which air travelled from west, to east, and, on tho other hand, a

comparatively narrow equatorial belt of air continually passing westward. Between the two, over the great oceans, were permanent antioycloniocirculations,huge travelling bands of air. a couple of thousand miles ong (W. to E.) and a thousand miles wide |X. to S.). They reminded one of tho driving belts of “tanks.” As they moved round and round like a cog belt they carried forward the westward moving air of tho equatorial circulation on the south side md the eastward moving air of the polar

circulation on the north side. _ They were thus the gear that kept the main fly-wheels of the atmosphere in working order. He attributed much importance to this aspect of the fly-wheel. : It was what long-distance travellers in the air had chiefly to think of in the ways of the air. By taking advantage of the equatorial portion in the 15th century Columbus reached America, and similarly, in the 20th century, by taking advantage of the circumpolar part, Alcock crossed the Atlantic in an aeroplane in 16 hours. DANGERS OF SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE. A new conception of education as a physical force applied to the human brain has recently been unfolded by Sir Arbuthnot Dane. He speaks as a surgeon whose originality of mind in his own department is known to the whole world. Education, he declares, exercises a mechanical effect on the brain. Our brain cells are affected by any mental routine or habit of thought extending over a long period. Moreover, the development ot a special sense often results in the loss of what is usually called common sense—by which Sir Arbuthnot understands: “The capacity to arrive at a conclusion the truth ot which would appeal to a number of people engaged in a variety of occupations.’' The coal-heaver’s backbone loses its normal curves, ho says, and is converted into a “long,- straight rod, or shelf, on which the load rests.’’ This effect, useful as it is, limits the coal-heaver’s breathing. Should he get some lung trouble he is seriously handicapped, and the chances of his surviving are much less than those of an individual with normal breathing capacity. The brain obeys similar rules and undergo similar changes. Sir Arbuthnot asks how rarely does on eminent classis succeed in any scientific pursuit "How often,” he continues, ‘‘does the fixation of the cells of the brain of the senior wrangler during but a fraction of his life-time render him ill adapted to any subsequent career other than mathematical?” Knowledge, therefore, of a particular kind, may be a curse, to be forgotten as quickly as possible in certain instances, and parents ought to find out very early in their children’s lives what combination the cells of the brain can make most readily to secure to the child the greatest advantage. Heredity must bo recognised, Sir Arbuthnot says that while the father transmits to the daughter, the mother hands down her tendencies to the son. The mother is thus more important in this generation, the father in the next. It is laid down that: “In order to determine the direction in which the brain of the son should be trained with the greatest advantage, the tendencies of his mother and of her father should be carefully studied. The father’s tendencies seem to me to be of comparatively little importance as regards his son.” The education of women presents special problems. Women suffer a handicap both’ in brain and body which cannot be overlooked, and the training of the mind may interfere with the true mission of womanhood.