THE COLDEST THING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2855, 2 December 1908, Page 80

THE COLDEST THING.

STARTLING DISCOVERY OF SCIENCE.

Imagine something as much colder than the coldest thing hitherto known to mankind as ic* is colder than boiling water, and you *vill have some >dea of the extraordinary discovery with which a Dutch professor has been credited. He is said to have found out how to liquefy helium, the rarest and most volatile of all gases. The temperature at which this new liquid may be obtained, it appears, is 450deg below zeio, so its presence in the world will be sufficient to revolutionise human life.

The liquefaction of helium, says a scientist whose opinion was taken on the question, is of the most startling and farreaching significance. It opens the door to possibilities of which students of refrigeratior have long been aware, but which thus far have been beyond our reach in actual practice. It is apparent, for example, ihat if we can distribute ammoma-clulled brine from one room of a cold storage warehouse co all the other rooms in it, .\e thould. theoretically, be able to distribute it from a central point to house?, office buildings, theatres, and the lik-e. at a distance, as is done with gas and steam.

But the size and cost of the plant required, the impossibility of developing a degre? of co.d which will not Ge dissipated in transit unless pipes of prohibitive gi/e are employed, has placed the idea in the category of laboratory dreams. Even the use of liquid air or liquid hydrogen would nor. obviate this last objection. The cost of production and distribution would outweigh the benefits.-

— May Revolutionise War. —

Science does not iecoguL c c the impossible, however, and it Jt is possible to produce a liquid which, forced to distant points through pipes small enough to be strung like telephone wire>, is so cold that such distribution cannot materially

impair its effectiveness — and this seems to be the case — science has achieved a most revolutionary triumph. , This discovery, to a mind of scientiSe imaigination, is fraught not alone with the most alluring possibilities for the wellbeing of Jiankind, as it may be applied to the increase of comfort and health, but with possibilities of destruction and death beside which the engines and munitions of modern warfare are playthings. Let us divide the proportion into two parts, he continued, upon being pressed for an explanation of such a startling statement. Some years ago when I was conducting some experiments in a cold storage establishment I sent a number of workmen through the plants to inspect what are called ammonia gates. These are valve-like openings, by the proper action of which the expansion of the ammonia igas may be regulated at will, the rate of expansion determining the temperature. One of these men, in some way which no one will ever know, kicked open an ammonia gate. Not only was the man instantly killed by the fumes, but he was instantly frozen solid and broke into pieces when he struck the floor. Now when . you consider that liquid helium is as much colder than vaporised ammonia as a piece of ice is colder than molten lava, you will realise the appalling consequences of its power as an agent of death should it be employed as an instrument of war or private vengeance. Suddenly liberated in a battleship, it would not only instantly freeze to death every man on board, but the inconceivable cold would at once cause the ship itself with all its guns and machinery to fail in pieces. — A Town Frozen Solid. — An office building cooled by the medium of liquid helium could be .vrecked in an instant fcjy the hand of a maniac or oiys bent on revenige, and every one of its occupants transformed to ghastly statues of ice. lam not romancing. Just as sure as we are now conquering the buoyancy of the air we shall achieve the control of its temperature. While diplomats are protesting friendship at Si'ate banquets secret wires will be laid, and suddenly, at midday, perhaps, a whole metropolis wall become a splinteTed ruin, and its inhabitants frozen solid at their occupations. It is as possible as the telephone was when St. Paul's Church was built. put this picture of the future has a bright side as well. It is in the realm of sanitation that I can see the vast utility of this great discovery. It means the practical stopping of the process of putrefaction for one thinig. A hollow wire of liquid helium just small enough not to freeze water run through -Jvery pipe in a city would not only absolutely deodoTise the city, but it would kill every germ of disease. Water mains and sewer pipes would be absolute of death — as they are now its chief-thorough-fares.