THE SCIENCE CONGRESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 6, 25 August 1914, Page 3

THE SCIENCE CONGRESS.

INTERESTING PAPERS. i.Bi Electric Telegraph—Copyrightj [United Press Association.] (Received 9.50 a.m.) Sydney, August 24. Professor Rutherford, in the course of a lecture on “Atoms and Electrons,” said the atomic theory had now attained to a high degree of probability through recently-made measurements. One must admit granular structure in matter, but there were also indications, as pointed out by Helmholtz in 1870, that small quantities of electricity existed, all being of a same magnitude. One of these electrical particles was now called an electron. Sir Oliver Lodge, who presided, in thanking Professor Rutherford for his great lecture, said the lecturer was a great worker in physical science, to whom we owed many discoveries, and to whom we were going to owe more. He had struck fertile ground and was certain the yield would be a rich harvest. Professor Dixon, in a series of demons tratious, showed the extraordinary accelerating influence of tracer of water on chemical reactions. He observed that an ordinary explosive mixture of carbon monoxide and oxygon, could not be fired if the gases were perfectly dry. He illustrated the difference between three phases of gaseous explosions—slow propagation by conduction, the vibratory period, and the rapid retonation of the explosion wave. The lecturer described his experiments in explosions in mines, showing that diluting coal

dust with its own weight in combustible dust makes the mixture difficult to ignite. The danger of finely divided inert dust making firedamp more explosive was proved to be nonexistent.

Professor Netschaweff, in the ■education section, discoursed on Russian pedagogics. Professor Turner’s paper on discontinuites and meteorological phenomena showed the progress of research and the possibilities of forecasting the weather for the month and seasons.