TRAFFIC VIBRATIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1933, Page 22 (Supplement)

TRAFFIC VIBRATIONS

SCIENTISTS SEARCH. NIGHTS IN THE LABORATORY. A college “ghost”; London’s traffic vibration; the bells of St. Sepulchre, Holborn; and midnight visits from suspicious police constables—these are some o e difficulties which have been successfully overcome by Dr. H. R. Nettleton, of Birkbeck College, London, m a recent determination of one of the fundamenta units of electricity. Dr. Nettleton subsequently described to a representative of the Morning the extraordinary precautions whicn must be taken in carrying out research work in the colleges building off Chancery Lane. , In search of quiet Dr. Nettleton has worked through 250 nights in lus laboratory. Between midnight and six in the morning he finds that there is no traffic vibration; but something which he and his assistants call the college ghost occasionally makes dull, heavy noises ana which is strange for a ghost—shakes tne building. . There have, so they say, even been voices heard on the landing outside, u when the door has been opened there has been no one visible. His other night trouble has been the anxiety of policemen on seeing a light in the small hours. On one occasion a cordon was put round the building, before it was discovered that it was only a scientist at work.” . But Dr. Nettleton’s favourite time ioi working is on a Sunday, between the morning and evening services at bt. Sepulchre's Church. Although e church is more than a quarter of a mile distant the pealing of its bells is sufficient to set his recording spot of ligtu dancing, and sometimes it has been known to move six inches. _ Most of these troubles, he explained, he has overcome by suspending ‘he whole of his apparatus from the ceiling. Even then it would swing if he had not discovered that by letting a pomter at the bottom of the apparatus float m viscid treacle or lubricating oil he could stop the random movement. Yet he has never been discouraged. His work has been received with approval bv the Physical Society, and his hope is that one day the college's dream of a new building on the Bloomsbury University site will be realised. Then lie will have a modern, vibrationless laboiatorj in which to work.