Back Matter Source: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 58, No. 6 (Jun., 1944), pp. ix-xii Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/18205 . Accessed: 09/05/2014 01:16 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Scientific Monthly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Fri, 9 May 2014 01:16:32 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Transcript
Back MatterSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 58, No. 6 (Jun., 1944), pp. ix-xiiPublished by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/18205 .
Accessed: 09/05/2014 01:16
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to The Scientific Monthly.
http://www.jstor.org
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BACK ON THE JOB after a 25-year layoff are the original Westinghouse generators at Niagara Falls. These went into service in 1_895 as part of the first great a-c polyphase power system. Replaced in 1917, they were kept as standby equipment until the begin- ning of the present war. Rewound and reconditioned, they are now back in full-time service, delivering sore power than when new. LIGHTS FOR HEAVYWEIGHTS. Those new super-bombers we've been reading about brought trouble on landing fields. Contact lights, sunk in the con- crete runways, weren't built to stand the weight, so structural strength had to be increased to 200,000 pounds, without any change in dimensions. As late as 1942, 35,000 pounds was standard. SIX-ROOM TRANSFORMERS - rather transformers as large as a six-room house are now serving a new war in- dustry. They're rated at 75,000 kva each, and require 188 tons of steel, 130 miles of copper wire. Separately- mounted radiators, and use of Hipersil for cores kept down size and weight. Otherwise, say engineers, problems of shipment and installation would have been insuperable. ELECTRONS BY THE POUND. One of the slide rule boys has figured out that nearly 4 pounds of electrons pass through each of the d-c terminals of a 10,000 ampere Ignitron rectifier in the course of one year. That's about 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,- 000,000 electrons, they tell us. "MAKE WAY FOR A SAILOR" may be the new slogan in locomotives. Steam turbines, so efficient in ship propul- sion, are being adapted for railroad use. Tests of one Westinghouse ex- perimental 6,500 hp unit indicate a saving of one-fourth in steam required, compared to conventional reciprocat- ing engines of the same power.
INSPECTING THE INVISIBLE.Tiny pin- holes, invisible to the naked eye, mean defective tin plate and possible spoil- age of badly needed food. A Westing- house photoelectric device detects these defects every time, though the tin plate rolls past at 1,000 feet a minute. Flawed sections are automati- cally marked, to be later cut and removed.
Research behind gas turbines The known simplicity and theoretical efficiency of the gas turbine has challenged generations of engineers. But the gas turbine as a practical producer of power could not exist until new alloys were created-alloys which could with- stand high temperatures for long periods.
In the testing machine shown here, Westinghouse scien- tists tested alloys, subjecting them to stresses of thousands of pounds per square inch at temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This was the research that provided better materials for steam turbines.
It was also an important step toward gas turbines. As the work continued, with new alloys and new testing machines, positive results were obtained at the high temperatures required for efficient gas turbine operation. Thus, research developed the materials which make the gas turbine a prac- tical possibility.
Another example of the Westinghouse research that is constantly providing new tools for industry. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., Pittsburgh 30, Pennsylvania.
WESTINGHOUSE PRESENTS: John Charles Thomas, Sunday, 2:30 p.m., E.W.T., NBC. "Top of the Evening," Monzday, Wednesday, Friday,
10:15 p.m., E.W.T., Blue Network.
Westinghouse PLANTS IN 25 CITIES OFFICES EVERYWHERE
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THE flashing colors of a diamond forces-have called on Perkin-Elmer and the clear tints of a rainbow had for help in blazing new trails in opti- been seen by countless people be- cal science. fore Sir Isaac Newton asked, "How This exchange of ideas with lead- are these colors formed ?" ers in the sciences plus war-inspired
His memoir on "Opticks" records production methods will enable the answer in a quaintly worded Perkin-Elmer to incorporate in post- Theorem: "The light of the sun con- war scientific optical instruments
sists of rays differently refrangible." extra refinements that will open up This conclusion, based on many ex- new avenues of investigation. periments with crude glass prisms
* r * , * WHAT PERKIN-ELMER MAKES and a pencil of sunlight slanting into a shuttered room, laid the Custom-built optical instruments foundation of all spectroscopy. Fur- for industrial analysis, control, and ther, it led Newton to invent the inspection. reflecting telescope, because he New optical devices to solve spe- thought that his prismatic colors cific problems, such as the all-pur- would make an achromatic lens for- pose infra-red spectrometer. ever impossible. Special elements such as fine
Today, Sir Isaac Newton's suc- lenses, prisms, flats, photographic cessors are exploring new worlds of objectives, interferometer plates, astronomy, chemistry, metallurgy, retardation plates, Cornu prisms, photography and vision with lenses Rochon prisms, Nicol prisms. and prisms in instruments of con- stantly increasing accuracy. Many of these modern explorers-in in- dustry, education and the armed
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