The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1937. IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 300, 18 December 1937, Page 8

The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1937. IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

TN the world of science men are universalis! s. There is no racial consciousness arising to mar the world tribute to Dr. Bose, whose work on trees culminated in the discovery that a tree had an elongated heart. Nobody thinks of him as an Indian, but as a scientist. Again, how many people are conscious of the fact that Professor Einstein, of relativity fame, is a German Jew who has been driven from his country because of his distant and distinct racial origin? He is thought of as a remarkable mathematician who has proved himself capable of blazing the trail in mathematics. Lord Rutherford was originally a New Zealander, but save that he is the first New Zealander born to be raised to the peerage, his country of origin is of small note. The tributes which have been paid to Lord Rutherford throughout the world have been very high indeed. They place him in the first rank of discoverers. A graceful tribute was paid to him by the Christian Science Monitor. In the course of an editorial that journal remarked: —-

It was Rutherford who led the way in “smashing the atom,” developing what has been termed the “new alchemy” through transmutation of one physical element into another. Even while director of the world-famous Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge University he continued the investigations which brought him fame in 1919 as the first to achieve that centuries-old dream of the “philosophers’ stone,” actual transmutation. They led to present concepts of the physical structure of “building blocks” from which the universe is fashioned. Atoms arc no longer viewed as minute, solid bits of matter, but planetary systems as infinitesimally tiny as the universe is infinitely large. Throughout the world to-day, wherever experimental physics is actively pursued, researchists are uncovering new data on such worlds. In half a hundred research centres, cyclotrons or “atom merry-go-rounds,” and giant electrostatic generators or “atom guns,”' are being used to find out more details concerning atomic nuclei and the orbits of their planets. Probably the greatest surprise in this investigative work was the discovery of tremendous energies computed in millions of electronvolts locked up in such systems

Lord Kelvin observed fifty years ago “the heart and soul of physical research is its practical application.” So far the practical value of knowledge in nuclear physics when translated to industrial or economic usage, is nil. No one has yet been able to put subatomic energy to work at all. But that does not mean no one ever will. Without the Faradays, Einsteins and Rutherfords, there would be no “handy men” for applied science, for the Watts, Morses, De Forests, Marconis and Edisons would have no fund of systematised, observational knowledge from which to work.