Engineering and Science, Volume 21:8, May 1958

Books Modern Science and the Nature of Life by William S. Beck Harcourt, Brace and Co., N.Y. $5.75 The Dawn of Life by J. H. Rush Hanover House, N.Y. $4.50 Reviewed George W. Chairman of the Biology Division Beadle These are exciting days in the biology laboratory. Viruses are disemboweled and reassembled in ways that promise to reveal the innermost molecular secrets of these simplest of known living systems. The structure of the protein molecule and the sequences of its amino acid building blocks are yielding to the patience and persistence of chemists. The detailed structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is understood in ways that promise to tell us how this carrier of genetic information is reproduced at each cell division with almost unbelievable precision. And we are close to an understanding of the manner in which this gene material undergoes mutation-the basis of all organic evolution-and the mechanism by which the information coded within it is used in the synthesis of the thousands of kinds of protein molecules of which we are so largely built. Biochemists seem on the verge of a complete synthesis of nucleic acid of the type that could have been the beginning of organic evolution on earth. If man succeeds in making such a primitive "living" molecule in a test tube-living because it can both reproduce and evolve-it will no longer seem miraculous. The mystery of life is rapidly being replaced by understanding--the deep and rewarding understanding that is the goal of all science. Many of these breakthroughs in biology have been made by chemists and physicists who have responded to the challenge of the problems of biology. 4 With Sputniks, Explorers and Van-guards, public interest in science in general has been raised to a high pitch, even though the orbiting satellites are not themselves science but are rather spectacular technological applications of science. We are barraged with information and misinformation about fallout from tests of nuclear weapons and its mutation-producing properties. The man in the street argues with the doctor about whether that recommended X-ray examination or treatment will make monsters of his chil-dren. The ninth-grade member of the Science Club asks: "What is the difference between DNA and RNA?" It is good that the urge to know about science in general and biology in particular has grown to such pro-portions, for more and more the decisions that affect the future of our free and democratic society involve science and its applications. The two books reviewed here should go a long way toward satisfying the non-specialist's thirst for knowledge about the new biology, and for an understanding of its proper place in the science that has become such an important part of man's culture. William Beck's delightfully written book is the more general of the two. It describes science as science, and examines it from a sound and informative philosophical point of view. In the author's own words: "This book is being written in the belief that science and scientific methods are the best means available to us for solving the problems of our cultural crisis. Science is, beyond question, the outstanding feature of modern civilization. Our world is, to an increasing extent, dominated, if not by pure science itself, then by the conceptions of the public at large and its leaders concerning the nature of science. More and more, this idea of science, misunderstood through it is, has gained in influence, and, as its status has changed, great new problems have arisen, many of which have yet even to be identified as problems by the majority of people. "It can be argued, I think (and I intend to argue), that much of humanity's present difficulty stems from the paradoxically strained relations between science and the other areas of knowledge, and from the surpassing paradoxes within science itself, the very ingredients which make it such a frustrating and delightful mistress to its practitioners. "These paradoxes are an important cause of the present crisis; they are its consequences and one of its best examples. For the essence of science is paradox and, in trying to explain science, this is one of the main points I hope to get across. "To the mid-twentieth-century citi-zen, science is an almost grotesquely ambivalent phenomenon: it is at the same time highly systematic in its approach to the real world, yet it is never complete and never reaches final conclusions. It is the model of certainty in its methodology and logic, yet its driving force is delib. erate doubt, and its results are prob able, never certain. It requires of its workers absolute discipline, yet it is the fountainhead of exciting new ideas and new ways of thought. Though it may be local in origin, its conclusions are universal. For its creators it is a supreme adventure of the spirit, while at the same time it is the sole basis of endless reams of myth and superstition. It is the heal. er and builder and the propagator of untold suffering and death. Is it any wonder that science, the strong, the promising, the unforeseeable, the anarchical force in our modern world, should be the cause of acute anxiety?" Beck goes on to discuss such topics as the nature of science, how biology became a science, what is certainty, the cell as a unit of life, how life evolves, the nature of life, the technique of discovery, genes, viruses, the origin of life, the problem of cancer and the nature of mind. All these Engineering and|Science Books . •continued things he does with wit, skill and a Mars, perhaps, or Venus, or the un- refreshing literary style. known planetary families attending Rush concerns himself mainly other stars—are peopled by life and with living systems. His is a more even intelligence. This preoccupa- nearly straightforward presentation tion leads one immediately to won- of the subject matter of modern biol der about the adaptability of life ogy. The thread of continuity is to radically different environments, evolution, inorganic and organic, and to make some educated guesses from the primordial earth to the as to the conditions that prevail on present. other planets. It is but a step from More and more we are coming to such thoughts to the more funda- see that evolution is a continuous mental question of the origin of life, process from the hydrogen of the on earth or elsewhere. primitive universe, through elements, inorganic molecules, complex carbon Showing the way compounds, simple virus-like sys- "This book is not intended to give tems, and on to man himself. an answer to the riddle of life's At first thought this concept may origin, but to point a direction. The seem crudely and revoltingly materi- principle of rational inquiry, of reas- alistic. It seems to leave no room oning logically from experience, has for a Creator. But when one asks served us well. Its range of applica- the question, "Does it require less tion broadens as science consolidates faith in a universe so designed as to its gains. Yet we have only very re- be capable of giving rise to man by cently learned enough of astronomy an orderly process of evolution than and physics, of the earth's history, it does to accept the creation of man of chemistry and biology, to be able in his present state?" one sees that to bring the origin of life out of the modern science has in no way realm of pure conjecture. The de- changed the problem of what lies tailed ideas and interpretations set beyond the knowable. forth in this book undoubtedly will be drastically modified as our under- Dawn of life standing grows; but I do not believe Rush, a physicist, tells us in his that the direction in which they lead preface how he became interested in our thinking will be changed. That biology and what he attempts to ac- direction is expressed in the convic- complish in his book: tion that life is a natural phenom- "Sometime between the formation enon in the same sense that the phe- of the earth and the advent of man, nomena of inanimate matter are nat- the first tentative organic systems ural, and that life will develop out crossed the uncertain boundary line of non-living material wherever suit-from the non-living world to that of able conditions prevail for a suff- the living. The origin of life is a cient time." uniquely appealing mystery. It is The book includes a discussion of something that ungestionably hap the ever-fascinating possibility of life pened, an event in the finite past. Yet on other solar planets and elsewhere the idea of a world without life, and in the universe. It concludes with a the manner by which life came into chapter on the emergence of mind it, both challenge the imagination to that remarkable product of evolution the utmost. I developed an active that has made it possible for man to interest in the subject out of my pro- add cumulative cultural inheritance, fessional work in physics and astron- including science, to the blind biol omy. No one, I believe, can be con- ogical inheritance of his evolution- cerned with the throng of planets ary forbears. and stars and galaxies that fill the I know of no easier or more enjoy- depths of space without wondering able way to learn about the new bi- whether other worlds than ours- ology than to read these two books. 6 Why Vought Projects Bring Out The Best In An Engineer At Vought, the engineer doesn't often forget past assignments. Like all big events, they leave vivid memories. And it's no wonder. For here the engineer contributes to history-making projects —among them the record-breaking Crusader fighter; the Regulus Il missile, chosen to arm our newest nuclear subs; and the new fast-developing 1,500-plus-mph fighter, details of which are still classified. The Vought engineer watches such weapons take shape. He supervises critical tests, and he introduces the weapons to the men with whom they will serve. Engineers with many specialties share these experiences. Today, for exam-ple, Vought is at work on important projects involving: electronics design and manufacture inertial navigation investigation of advanced propulsion methods Mach 5 configurations Vought's excellent R&D facilities help the engineer through unexplored areas. And by teaming up with other specialists against mutual challenges, the Vought engineer learns new fields *** Would you like to know what men with your training are doing at Vought... what you can expect of a Vought career? For full information, see our representative during his next campus visit. *** Or write directly to: C. A. Besio Supervisor, Engineering Personnel Dept. CM-8 VuGHT AIRCRAFT Engineering and|Science The Coldest Spot in the World It's in a vacuum tube in the low-temperature physics laboratory by Jane Werner Watson "The Coldest Spot in the World" has been taken from a forthcoming book, The World of Science, by Jane Walson. The book, which is written for junior high and high school students, tells about current research in all the various fields of science. Most of the research projects described in The World of Science are now going on at Caltech. Even the idea for the book came from Caltech-from Earnest Watson, in fact, dean of the faculty, who felt strongly that younger students needed, and would welcome, a greater understanding of science. Since Mrs. Watson is a skilled writer uf books for young people, The World of Science was he natural result. The World of Science, a Golden. Book by Jane Werner Watson, copyright 1958 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Artists and Writers Press, Inc., will be published in the fall. What is the coldest spot in the world? Near the North Pole? No, in its polar ice pack temperatures go down only to about -81°F. (the record for North America). Siberia's record cold was -90°F. The South Pole? The lowest temperature reported thus far from the South Pole is —89 F. But in a low-temperature physics laboratory in the middle of a well-protected vacuum tube or thermos bottle, the temperature may go down to -459.5°F. or even lower. -459.6°F. is absolute zero. It is the coldest possible temperature. On the special scale used in scientific work, it is O°K. (for Kelvin). The helium in that thermos bottle in the physics laboratory is not at absolute zero. But it is not far from it. It is perhaps 0.01° away. At this temperature even one of the lightest, freest gases in the world has turned—if we 18 could see it inside its silvered container-to a bubbling liquid, then stopped even bubbling and turned smooth as jelly. This is the coldest spot in the world. You know that atoms and molecules are always in motion. In gases they move most freely. For there they are not held together in any shape. In liquids they still slide around easily. And even in a solid-a piece of wood, for example-if you could see the molecules and atoms you would find them vibrating slightly in place. You know that most kinds of matter can be turned from solid to liquid to gas. Let us take iron and water as two examples. Water as a solid is ice; as a liquid it is water; as gas it is water vapor. As ice, it is rather cold; its molecules move slowly. When ice warms up, its molecules move faster; at the melting point they break loose from their solid form and flow like water. As water warms up, its molecules move faster still. At the boiling point they break loose from the liquid form and leap up into the air. They can move fast enough and exert enough force to push the cover up from a pan. So it is with iron. The molecules in solid iron ore are more tightly bound than in ice. Iron must be heated to a much higher temperature than water before it melts, before its molecules get to moving fast enough to break loose from their solid form and flow as a liquid. And liquid iron must be heated very hot indeed specifically, it must be heated to 3032°K.—before it turns to a gas. We see then that heat is connected with the motion of molecules. In fact, the energy in this motion of molecules is heat. When you touch a hot stove, what you feel as heat is partly the result of the rapidly vibrating molecules striking at your finger. Cold is the lessening of that motion. And absolute zero is the point at which, practically speaking, all the Engineering and|Science motion of molecules would cease. There would be practically no energy, no heat, no motion. That is the state our low temperature physicist is trying to approach in his experiments with liquid helium. We have said that it takes a lot of heator energy-to get iron molecules moving fast enough to break loose from their solid state and turn to liquid. This is mostly because the forces of attraction holding the iron molecules in place are very strong. Water melts from its solid state of ice at a much lower temperature because its molecules are not so strongly bound. It takes less heat or energy to get them moving fast enough to break away from the solid state. Air is the gas with which we are most familiar. Its molecules dart around freely as a gas until they are cooled down to about 85°K. or -300°F. At 85°K. or colder, air molecules are so slowed down that they form a liquid. Moreover, this liquid air can be separated into liquid oxygen (1/5) and liquid nitrogen Several uses have been found in industry for liquid oxygen. You know that oxygen is necessary to keep any fire burning. Liquid oxygen is used to speed up the burning of fuel in long-range rockets and jet airplanes. It is also used in the manufacture of steel, to speed up the burning of fuels there. Liquid oxygen has enough industrial uses so that it is John R. Pellam, Caltech professor of physics, is timing the cooling of liquid helium in this dewar. Submerged within the liquid helium is a small glass vial of condensed helium and helium 3, the rare light isotope which will not liquefy until nearly absolute zero temperature. May, 1958 shipped by tank-carloads. And scientists are busy look. ing for new uses for the liquid nitrogen which is left over in the separation. One possible use is a liquid nitrogen bath (at -320°F.) for steel, which can then be rolled to extreme hardness. But there are gases even better than oxygen and nitrogen for low-temperature work. There is hydrogen, which does not slow down into a liquid until 20.38°K. It does not slow down into a solid, or freeze, until it reaches 14.04°K. Unfortunately hydrogen is too explosive for safe industrial use. Then there is helium. Although it is not as light as hydrogen, its molecules need even less heat or energy to keep moving freely as a gas. They do not slow down into a liquid until 4.22 K. In fact, there is a light isotope of helium, He, which does not liquefy until 3.20°K. That is the lowest natural boiling point for any liquid. It is the reason low-temperature physicists use helium when they are trying to get as close as possible to absolute zero. How do you go about cooling helium down almost to absolute zero? You use every method of cooling you can think of. Restaurants and physicists How do restaurants keep certain foods ice-cold while they serve them? They set the dishes containing the foods in bowls of ice. Physicists use this method, too. They may surround the tank of helium gas with liquid nitrogen at about 77°K. to start the cooling process. They also compress the helium into a small space. The work of doing this heats it up, of course, but the heat is absorbed in the packing of liquid nitrogen. When the helium is allowed to expand again, it cools down still Physicists also use already-cooled helium to help them cool more. On the way to the cooling box, the gas is piped through coils of tubing. Coming up through other coils is helium which has already been cooled. The two sets of coils are wrapped together. So the already-cooled helium helps cool the incoming gas. That brings the temperature down some more. Heat is energy, we have said. You know one way to use up energy-doing work. So the physicists make the helium do work. Inside the cooling machine is a small engine. There are two cylinders with pistons in them. The pressure of the helium gas pushes up the pistons. That means the gas is doing work. It is using energy. It loses heat in the process. You know that in a steam engine water is heated until it turns to steam, and the pressure of this steam pushes up the piston in a cylinder. Doing this work cools the steam so that it turns back into water and more fuel has to be burned to heat it to steam again. In the same way, doing the work in this engine cools the helium a bit more. Of course a steam engine has to have lubricating oil to keep the piston from sticking. For years men thought 19 it would be impossible to run an engine with helium or cooled air because it would be working at such low temperatures that any lubricating oil would freeze solid. How could they keep the pistons from sticking? In these engines, a thin film of the gas itself provides the lubrica-tion! Next, some of the helium is allowed to expand through a small nozzle leading into another container. In this expansion, some of the small amount of heat still remaining in the gas is used to separate the atoms. This "work" against the natural force of the atoms' attraction for each other cools the helium so that it turns to liquid. Its temperature is now 4,2°K. Keeping cool What do you use to keep lemonade cool for a picnic? You use a thermos bottle. That is what the physicists use for their liquid helium, too. But what a thermos bottle! Outside are two layers of silvered glass with a vacuum between. Next comes a layer of liquid nitrogen, itself very cold. Again, inside this, is a double layer of glass with another vacuum between the two glass walls. And finally comes the liquid helium. This sounds like real protection. But there are still difficulties. One is that the vacuum must be pumped out repeatedly, because helium can leak even through pyrex glass walls! For the final chilling steps, the liquid helium is pumped through vacuum-protected tubes into a dewar vacuum tube waiting in a special laboratory. Then a sample of a certain material called a para- magnetic salt is suspended inside a tube of rarefied helium gas in the middle of the liquid helium. When all is ready, the physicist swings the tube around to an electromagnet (as shown in the picture at the top of the page), whose two sections roll shut around the tube. The time has come for the last steps down toward absolute zero. The paramagnetic salt has a special quality. When a magnetic field is applied to it-when the big electromagnet is turned on—its molecules line up magnetically like tiny iron filings near a bar magnet. We have said that it was the disorderly motion of molecules, called thermal chaos, which causes heat. Now, this magnetic lining-up of molecules is just the opposite of disorder or chaos. So what it does is force heat out of the salt. The heat flows from the salt into the rarefied helium gas around it. This gas carries the heat out to the sur- rounding liquid helium. Now, to prevent the heat from flowing back in again by the same route, this gas must be pumped out by a vacuum pump. At these extremely low temperatures, atoms move very slowly indeed. So it may take as much as 20 minutes to complete the pumping out. Then the magnetic field is removed. The lined-up salt molecules can turn in all directions again. This move- 20 I'hes powerful electromagnet helps to produce temperatures close to absolute zero. Liquid nitrogen, a cooling agent, is being poured into a dewar which surrounds a container of liquid helium. When the silver dewar is swung into position, the two heavy iron sections of the electromagnet are rolled shut and the cooling procedure begins. ment takes some energy, and therefore uses up some heat, which cools the salt as a whole. Down goes the temperature of the salt in the half second it takes to turn off the current, down to perhaps 0.001°K. By now the glass of the tube is at such low temperature that it does not conduct heat well. So, even if room temperature heat should strike the outside surface, it would have a hard time flowing all the way in. Inside the vacuum protection, it will take seven or eight hours for the precious salts to warm up even to .01'K.- No excitement "Why try to approach absolute zero?" poople used to ask low-temperature physicists. "When you get there, everything will be motionless as death. There will be no excitement." The scientists themselves did not know just what they would find down near OK. But they kept working toward it. And just a few years after they first managed to liquefy helium (which had been done in 1908) they made a surprising discovery which has not lost its excitement in 50 years. This discovery was superconductivity. You know that some substances are better conductors of electricity than others. Wood is no good at all. Among metals, lead is not very good. Tin is fairly good. And copper is very good. Now it was discovered that, at very low temper-atures, certain metals, including lead and tin, become superconductors. This is how the experiment works. The physicist takes a small ring of lead and places it in a container planned Engineering and Science In this experiment a small magnet is dropped into a container filled with liquid helium. As long as the temperature is kept below 7.2° K., the magnet will float instead of dropping to the bottom. The magnet can hardly be seen in this picture because, at 3° K., the helium is still boiling violently. for liquid helium. Around the thermos bottle he places a coil of wire through which a steady d-c electric current is set running. The starting up of this current sets up a temporary current in the lead ring. But it almost immediately dies out, because of resistance in the lead. Now liquid helium is poured into the container, around the lead. The lead cools to an extremely low temperature, of course. As it falls below 7.2°K., the lead becomes a superconductor. Again, changing the current in the coil outside induces a current in the lead ring as before. But with a difference. Now the current in the outer coil of wire can be turned off. But the current thus induced in the lead ring will run on and on, presumably forever, as long as the lead is kept so extremely cold. For there is no resistance to electricity in the lead to slow down and stop the current, so close to absolute zero. The physicist holds up a compass close to the thermos bottle or vacuum tube. And the magnetic field set up by that current in the lead ring is strong enough to attract the compass needle! Next he lowers a small lead plate to the bottom of another container of liquid helium. Then he lets down a small magnet into the helium. You would expect it to fall to the bottom too. But it does not. What happens? The magnet sets up a mirror image of itself in the lead plate. Since like poles of a magnet repel each other, the mirror image repels the magnet. And just enough electric current is generated in the lead plate to balance the power of the magnet and hold it suspended above the lead. It would remain thus suspend. ed forever if the temperature could be kept permanently below 7.2°K. 22 In this phase of the experiment the liquid helium has been cooled to just a couple of degrees above absolute zero. The boiling has ceased and the liquid is smooth as jelly—in fact, it is the most quiescent substance known. The floating magnet can now be plainly seen through the clear windows in the silvered sides of the dewar. Why is this "mirror image" set up? Why is there no resistance to electricity at these very low temperatures? Why does the current seem to run on forever like a perpetual motion machine? These are questions no one has been able to answer in 50 years. Perhaps the answer is hidden in the perpetual motion within atoms. For electrons, you know, whirl forever around their nuclei with no loss of energy. You may be the one to find the answers to these and other questions in electricity and magnetism, if you make low-temperature physics your field. A more recent surprise in low-temperature physics is what happens to helium itself. At 4.2°K. it settles into a liquid, boiling with small, lively bubbles. The vapor which keeps forming at the top is drawn off through a vacuum line. And the temperature keeps going down. At 2.19°K. the boiling stops. The liquid is smooth as jelly, as you can see through the small clear windows in the silvered sides of the Dewar jar. Has the helium frozen into a solid state comparable to ice? No. There is a solid state of helium, but it has so far been reached only under a combination of low temperature and very high pressure. It is still liquid, but some of it has a new form. It is called a superfluid. And it has been given the name helium II. Why is it called a superfluid? Because it can do things other liquids or fluids cannot do. Most liquids do not flow perfectly freely. There is a certain amount of re-sistance, or friction, which we call viscosity. But helium Il flows with perfect ease through the tiniest openings. continued on page 26 Engineering and|Science Coldest Spot in the World ... continued Water seeks its own level within one container. But helium II does more. If you lower an empty tube into helium II, the helium will creep up the sides of the tube and fill it to the level of the liquid outside. Lift the tube containing some helium II and hold it above the level of the rest of the helium II, and the liquid in the tube climbs out and down to join the rest. Perhaps strangest of all, there is the mysterious phenomenon called "second sound." Helium Il is a perfect conductor of heat. We would scarcely be inclined to think of heat at a temperature equal to -459°F. But there is a very small amount of heat or motion of molecules left in the liquid helium. If a very small bit of additional heat is applied, we can observe its movements through the superfluid. And a strange sort of movement it is! In most materials-from air to a rod of gold-heat moves slowly, spreading out gradually by what we call diffusion. But in helium II heat travels in sharp little pulses, very much like sound waves. In fact, this method of heat movement is called "second sound." Back in the nineteenth century, when scientists were just finding out about sound waves, it was discovered that these waves could turn aside a hanging disk of metal called a Rayleigh Disc. When low-temperature physicists started finding out about "second sound" in helium II, one of them recalled this old-time experiment and dangled a tiny Rayleigh Disc in liquid helium. Sure enough, it turned as the "second sound" waves of heat struck it. Of course these waves of "second sound" cannot be heard. They cannot be picked up with microphones. Since they are really temperature waves, special receivers have had to be made to receive them. These are tiny plates of carbon with a small constant current of electricity flowing through them. The colder they are, the less well they conduct electricity. The warmer they are, the better. One of these receivers is placed in the liquid helium. The current changes ever so slightly each time a "heat wave" strikes it and warms it a bit. And these changes in voltage can be amplified enough for a physicist to record. These experiments with "second sound." or thermal waves, are very delicate. As we have seen, it is a slow and difficult process to make the liquid helium needed just to start the experiments. And what will they prove? What use can be made of the knowledge? There is a saying among scientists to answer questions like this. "What good is a new-born baby?" they ask. In other words, "Give us time. Who can say what our experiments may lead to? Only time and testing will tell." EDISON NEEDS ENGINEERS 26 CIVIL ELECTRICAL MECHANICAL SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON COMPANY, the fastest-growing electric utility company in the United States, serves one of the fastest-growing areas of the nation. To cope with the constantly increasing demand for power, Edison now has in operation its first atomic electric generating plant. This is the first installation of its kind in the west to produce electricity for commercial use by atomic energy. Because of Edison's growth and its policies of leadership in technological fields and promoting from within, the opportunities for advancement with the company are at an unprecedented high. Edison's employee benefits include a medical and sick leave plan plus outstanding retirement, vacation and insurance plans. For all the details please write or call: Mr. C. T. Malloy, Southern California Edison Company, P. O. Box 351 - MIchigan 7111, Los Angeles 53, California. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Edison COMPANY LIVE BETTER-ELECTRICALLY Engineering and Science Volume XXI ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE May, 1958 Science and the National Welfare Our survival depends on our ability to act decisively - - and now by H. Rowan Gaither It is now just six months since the human race propelled some exciting hardware, and then man's best friend, into outer space. I do not have to remind anyone here that the first successful adventurers into this new age of outer space were not Americans, as we hoped would be the case, but Russians. Americans have shared outer space with the Russians for only a part of this time. And for that success, delayed though it was by decisions of a non-scientific and nontechnical nature, the American people must thank the men of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From the date the job finally was authorized by Washington until the first American earth satellite shot up, and out, and into orbit took only 12 weeks. This is nothing if not remarkable. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the date history will attach to the opening of the age of outer space will be a date written in Cyrillic characters. This is not a belated, dubious, or cynical claim like those we became familiar with several years back-when Russia was telling the world and itself that practically every technical and scientific advance known to man was Russian in origin. This claim on the original penetration of outer space is real-and we cannot afford the luxury of derisive laughter. From all the confusion that ensued in the wake of Russia's first Sputnik, one might almost think our scientific and technological impulse had ground to an unhappy halt and that the only thing left to wait for was the end itself. One might even conclude from the furor that no one in the scientific community had engaged in responsible thinking about any of our most critical needs. I think it is fair to point out that some of the loudest critics of the scientific community in recent years may very well have drowned out what the scientists were trying to tell us. I come neither as a critic nor as a scientist. I should "Science and the National Welfare" has been adapted from a talk given by Mr. Gaither at Caltech's 21st annual Alumni Seminar on April 12. Mr. Gaither is chairman of the trustees of the Ford Foundation. May, 1958 like to talk with you about science and the national wel. fare in the language of one who is himself not a man of science or technology. I would not be so presumptuous as to try to tell you how your job should be done. But in all conscience I can talk with you in terms of what the job ahead is, as I see it. My premise is simple. Science and the national welfare are linked insolubly. This is as true for the Russians as it is for ourselves. It is necessary to understand- as now indeed we do-that science and technology are not a monopoly of the free nations. We face real needs and hard choices. So let us first of all do away with the soft words. I am convinced of three interrelated propositions: First, that our national welfare and to us that means spiritual and political freedom as well as mere physical survival-depends to a preponderant and unmeasurable degree upon the future course of American science and technology. Second, that American science and technology, which once our people thought to be unquestionably unsurpass-ed, has not yet attained the strength and viability necessary to guarantee our welfare and survival in a prolong. ed period of international crisis. Third, the American people and their representatives in government must understand the extent to which their progress and security depend upon science and technol ogy—-and must understand what large tasks await us all in this connection. As of this moment, this understanding still has not been fully awakened. There is evidence that whatever awareness has developed under the impact of recent events may already be receding in the light of our own successful orbiting of satellites. We must guard zealously against any return to complacency. The responsibility for this rests on each of us—on our men of government, on our men of edu-cation, our men of industry, on the citizens at large and even on the institutions which already are most responsive to the needs. America must view its strengths and weaknesses in the 9 time perspective of the remaining years of the 20th cen-tury, in the social perspective of what we want America to be, in the politico-military perspective of the external threats to our values and principles, and in the humanitarian perspective of our acknowledged responsibilities to mankind everywhere. In this total perspective, the relative strength of the United States is not adequate to these historic responsi-bilities. I will not, however, be a prophet of gloom. There is time to repair this situation and to build our relative strength-if we act decisively and act now. The United States is the world's most powerful nation today. If we act now it will remain the most powerful nation in the future. Let us look forward a few years- to 1975. This is only as far into the future as we already have come from Pearl Harbor; and we know what vast changes have affected mankind in that short span of years. Let us, for purposes of our discussion, make several assumptions. Let us assume, first, that there will be no general nuclear war during these next two decades. We must base this on the further assumption that our nation will maintain a military capacity for retaliation that will stay the hand of any would-be aggressor. Let us assume also that the principal communist pow-ers, the Soviet Union and Red China, will remain politi-ically intact and stable. And let us assume that the political destiny of the newly independent and largely underdeveloped nations of Africa and Asia will largely be determined during these two critical decades. The communist world Based on these assumptions, the communist world as we define it today will present in the 1970's the following picture: It will have a subjugated population of upwards of 1¼ billion people; It will command, as it does today, one-third of the world's land mass; It will have weapons and weapons systems capable of delivering catastrophic destruction in a matter of minutes to any nation of the world, and a general military capability of engaging in conventional wars in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa; And the Soviet Union, perhaps alone, will have reached a gross national product at least equal to that of the United States, with all the implications inherent in that for their military expenditures and for their ceaseless economic and political offensives in the non-communist world. Forecasting the future comparative growths of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is, within certain limits, necessarily speculative. There is conservative economic opinion that the likely future rate of Soviet industrial growth will be significantly higher than ours, that the interval for which we will remain the biggest industrial power is 15 to 30 10 years. But the "cross-over" point in either gross national product or in industrial output is not as meaningful as the fact that today the Soviet Union, with an industrial base roughly two-fifths of ours, maintains a thoroughly modernized and menacing military establishment and prosecutes an increasing program of foreign economic subversion and infiltration. Russia is currently graduating 500 engineers per billion dollars of GNP while we are graduating about 60. What this portends for the future relative rate at which technological creativity is injected into the Russian economy and military technology, and for the scientific manpower serving the communists' military purposes and economic offensives, is arguable in degree but ominous in total. These are some of the blunt and awesome facts that come clear as we look at the future in perspective. We dare not comfort ourselves with hollow hopes. Key to the future Our total relative strength is the key to the future. This strength at any given moment is a compound of many factors-populations, economic forces, scientific achieve-ment, military capability, industrial progress, educational commitments. Communism's strength relative to the free world is based on the same factors. The communist world and the free world are two dynamic systems at work, moving at different rates of speed, taking different turns, and driving ultimately toward ideological goals which are diametrically opposed. If we are to plan with any degree of hard realism, we must expect the Russians not only will maintain but actually will increase their rate of forward industrial and economic development. And let us not underestimate the potential power of Red China. It is on this basis that I must conclude that our relative strength is ebbing. There are those who will argue that my assumptions put the communist position in the most optimistic light possible and, by contrast, our position in a pessimistic light. I fervently hope that, in this, history will prove I am in gross error. But I will contend, with all the emphasis at my command, that these assumptions are war-ranted-indeed compelled-by any objective appraisal and that we cannot lose if we make them and act accord-ingly. We will have maintained a constant military readiness to suppress with strength the possibility of nuclear disaster at home and throughout the free world. We will have cut wasteful fat from our economic and social frame and hardened our ideological muscle. Our society will have had the incalculable benefit of research, education and expansion from which so much of our future economic and democratic strength will derive. We will be fully prepared for almost any eventuality of the decades ahead. If time ultimately proves my assumption of communist strength to be grossly overestimated, then the United States and all mankind will be the beneficiary on every count of our expanded effort. Engineering and|Science H. G. Wells said that "human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." We are intimately involved in this race. Science, of course, is but one part of education's total job important in the extreme, but only one part. Education must produce enlightened human beings determined to preserve fundamental values and principles. It must produce an informed citizenry able to accept responsibility and to make democratic processes fully effective even in a protracted period of great stress. It must produce political leaders for the management of government, and judicial leaders to uphold the supremacy of law and reason. It must produce leaders for all sectors of our society who place foremost our freedoms and economic strengths, and scholars, scientists and teachers adequate in number and competence to meet the ever-growing demands already confronting our heavily committed educational resources. The role of education in the decades ahead being as all-encompassing as it is, why do I equate to such a large degree our national welfare with science? I see three major reasons. The power to destroy The first is the inescapable if burdensome call for mili- tary technology of the highest order. The nature of Rus- sian and American weapons development is such that when intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads are operational, the United States and Russia will possess the power to destroy each other. The second major reason that I equate our national welfare and science is that the security of the United States and the free world depends upon the ability of our nation and our allies to maintain economic strength and viability. We know the counterpull of economic weakness and debility. A strong economy is basic to national welfare-and nothing feeds and invigorates the economy more than science and technology. The third major reason for equating the national wel. fare and science is that it is imperative for the industrialized nations of the free world to assist the less-developed nations of the free world in their Herculean task of achieving better standards of living for their peoples and the foundations for economic development with democratic principles. The ultimate course of civilization and freedom may depend on whether they succeed or fail in attaining these goals. That our communist competitors know their destiny too turns largely on science and technology is abundantly clear. From the very outset of their communist regimes, both the Soviet Union and Red China have made industrialization overriding national objectives. In the pursuit of this, extraordinary emphasis has been put on science and technology in the school systems of those countries. What then can be done to bolster our scientific and technological strength? First and foremost, education in science and technol ogy must be improved at all levels. May, 1958 Our objective must be to produce men and women who are both superbly trained in science and technology and broadly educated. And we need men and women in the humanities and social sciences who are educated in the physical and natural sciences and technology as well. We cannot settle for less. We must subject ourselves to a searching self-scrutiny as to curriculum content and techniques. We must hold the best science teachers in their honored and vital profession and increase their numbers and competence. Improving education The upcoming generation of students must be better prepared for the rigors of advanced study. We must guard against the preoccupation of the day and remind ourselves that boys and girls in our high schools today will be the new scientists and engineers in the most critical period in our history. Not only must they be assured of the best education we can devise, but also they must not be denied that education for economic reasons. We must get on with the task of improving education today— even though we do not find all the solutions for many years to come. In this connection, those institutions which even now carry the special burden of leadership, institutions like your own California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others, have an urgent and weighty responsibility to our national wel. fare. In addition, these great institutions must now take on a strong, new role-education of the general public about the role of science and technology as an integral part of our whole social fabric. Never before has it been so important that there be public understanding of science as a part of our culture and of the essential nature of science to our security and our progress. Without such widespread understanding there cannot develop the support which is desperately needed. The classical role of institutions such as those I have named has embraced both education and research. Now additional stress must be put on the improvement of research. The research function has been augmented, particularly in periods of national peril, to provide scientific assistance to government. This responsibility has been built into the very structure of these institutions, and will remain there, I think, forever even as such institutions have provided ever-increasing scientific and technological assistance to industry. Both government and industry must now bear in mind the intimate relationship between the establishment of scientific principle and application of that principle, and the order in which these occur. Pure science, in any field, demands an atmosphere of freedom to seek the truth, wherever it leads. Where we lack the knowledge or the insight to see its ultimate ap-plication, if any, then we must have faith. The under- 11 standing will come later. Even those who underrate basic research must acknowledge in pragmatic terms, if they insist on direct application, that basic research does pay off. It always has. We dare not overlook, however, the importance of applying the results of our basic research. The Russians have demonstrated, particularly in weapons technology, great speed and efficiency in telescoping the time interval between discovery and operational use. In the modern world the fastest transition time may carry with it the decisive margin of power. Aside from the important military aspects, the days and years ahead dictate that scientific knowledge and techniques be brought to bear on all our problems. and that this be accomplished without injury to education as a whole or to basic research. One important way to pursue this goal is for the academic scientist, the governmental scientist and the industrial scientist to meet on common ground. Such a meeting ground is the technological institute. The technological institutes must accept this willingly and in doing so must have the full understanding and support of their trus-tees, staff and alumni. All of this is fundamental to the vastly increased understanding which is so necessary if science and technology are to flourish as they must in the interests of our national vigor. And all of this, admittedly, is quite an order. How do you go about it? One part of the answer is in terms of dollars. Uncommitted dollars Government has dollars, but generally wants specific answers to specific problems for its dollars. Industry has dollars, and for its dollars generally asks something of the same. Foundations have dollars, but all the funds available to foundation philanthropy in the United States, however large they may seem, can only serve to point up the needs, to help others seek experimental courses of action, and to challenge still others to share the burden. Yet the very nature of our problems of science and national welfare transcend any immediate need of any potential participant government, industry, alumni or whatever. The easiest money to get is for applied research — where results are often predictable, if not, in fact, specified in advance. This, however, is not general-support money. Yet the ability of institutions to handle applied research rises or falls in direct relation to the soundness of the overall academic structure. The kind of general financial support that I speak of is imperative in building the overall strength of our institutions of learning. This kind of money the so-called free or uncommitted moneyis unfortunately the hardest of all to get. It also is the most important. This free money is free only in the sense that it has no strings attached-no quid pro quo, no C.O.D. tag for specific research, however important or meritorious. But 12 it is part of the cost of society's welfare. It is, if you will, an investment in our own faith in freedom's future. What better purpose awaits our commitment to this faith? There is particular pertinence for this commitment, in the form of vastly increased support to such institutions as Caltech. With greater public awareness and knowledge of the role of science and technology, which you yourselves promote, there will come more enlightened governmental policies at all levels that will make federal and state funds more acceptable in the future than many people think they are today. Science and technology are, as I have said, but a part of the total educational structure with which we must be concerned. In our concern for science we must not lose sight of the essential roles of the liberal arts colleges. From them, again in pragmatic terms, we get most of the men and women who continue on into science. The scientist's responsibility The scientific community and all associated with it have a particular responsibility here to the entire educational enterprise not as scientists or as educators, not as industrialists or as military experts. The responsibility is on each individual as a citizen. Let me make clear: the scientific community does not hold a monopoly on responsibility for shaping the fu-ture; but it does carry a large and inescapable share of that burden. This responsibility includes specifically the right the need-to participate in affairs of the community at large. Saying this, I must also say that as free citizens of a free society, to whose strength their work contributes im-measurably, men of science must accept too the responsibility for any misjudgments they may make. I am speaking at once for the scientist's freedom in the public arena to be as right, or as wrong, as any other free citizen— without damage to his scientific integrity. In matters of science, a scientist is judged by his scientific peers. In all other matters, the scientist will be judged by all men. This goes both ways. It reinforces my plea that an increased public understanding of the true role of science and technology is fundamental. While I have discussed the needs for strengthening science and engineering in the face of a prolonged peril, I must make emphatically clear one additional and significant point: I would hold to these very same arguments even in the absence of such a peril! Realistically, of course, the peril is present. We are in a period of accelerating change and of prolonged threat. We live in a time when the decisions we make, or fail to make, can affect the freedom of men for all time. The torch of the national welfare and national survival are very largely in the hands of science. And science needs the massive support of every intelligent citizen to do its jab. Engineering and Science ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE IN THIS ISSUE MAY, 1958 VOLUME XXI PUBLISHED AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE NUMBER 8 OF TECHNOLOGY CONTENTS In This Issue Books 3 6 9 Science and the National Welfare Our survival depends on our ability to act deci-sively-and now. by H. Rowan Gaither ON THE COVER-John R. Pellam, Caltech professor of physics, and the spectacular glass structure he uses to condense helium 3 for his low-tem-perature research. Helium is forced by mercury through the glass bulbs to the silver dewar at the left. By pressure, and a temperature of 1.° K., the helium is condensed into about 1 cc. of fluid. Only one small drop of this may be the actual rare isotope, helium 3, which is now being used for studies of absolute zero. For more about low-temperature physics, see page 18. H. ROwAN GAITHeR, whose Alumni Seminar speech, "Science and the National Welfare, " appears on page 9 of this issue, is chairman of the board of the Ford Foundation, and the Rand Corporation. He is also chairman of the science resources panel of President Eisenhower's Science Advisory Committee, whose still-secret "Gaither Report" stirred up considerable excitement in the press recently. The Month at Caltech Alumni Seminar Day—1958 13 16 The Coldest Spot in the World It's in a vacuum tube in the low-temperature physics laboratory. by Jane Werner Watson 18 Personals 28 STAFF Publisher Editor and Business Manager Editorial Assistant Student News Student Photographers Richard C. Armstrong '28 Edward Hutchings, Jr. Gerda Chambers Brad Efron '60 Dennis L. Paul '59 William R. Schmus '60 PICTURE CREDITS Cover pps. 13,14,15 pps. 16,17 p. 19 May, 1958 Richard Hartt Harvey Graphic Arts, Caltech Richard Hartt Published monthly, October through June, at the California Institute of Tech-nology, 1201 East California St., Pasadena, graduate students and alumni of the Calif., for the undergraduates, Annual subscription $3.50 domestic, $4.50 foreign, single copies 50 cents. Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Pasadena, California, on September 6, 1939, under act of March 3, 1879. All Publisher's Rights Reserved. Reproduction of material contained herein forbidden without written authorization. Manuscripts and all other editorial correspondence should be addressed to: The Editor, Engineering and Science, California Institute of Technology. © 1958 Alumni Association. California Institute of Technology. Printed in Pasadena PP 3 Personals 1922 Howard G. Vesper has just been elected president of the Standard Oil Company of California, Western Operations, Inc. For the past several years, he has been a vice president and director, with marketing as his primary responsibility. The company is the largest operating subsidiary. of the Standard Oil Company of California and includes all of the company's activities in the seven western states, Alaska, and the Pacific Islands. 1924 Earl S. Hayman, owner of the Earl S. Hayman Company in Glendale, died of pneumonia on March 20. Earl worked in sound engineering for 18 years at Paramount Pictures and during the war he owned and operated an aircraft accessory firm while still with Paramount. He established his own office in real estate and insurance in 1945. 1926 Allen L. Laws writes that he's still division manager for the Southern California Edison Company in Los Angeles. Last year he was appointed a trustee of the San Marino City Library, and he is on the executive committee of the San Marino Community Council. 1927 W. Layton Stanton, PhD '31, has been transferred to Denver, Colorado, to serve as manager of the Rocky Mountain Di- vision of the Union Oil Company. He had been working as a geological coordinator for the company's Canada & Rocky Mountain Division in Los Angeles. 1932 John A. Leermakers, PhD, assistant director of the Kodak Research Laboratories in New York, was the main speaker at the Tenth Annual Management Conference of the Cornell University Graduate School of Business and Public Administration Ithaca, N.Y., last month. 1933 Robert L. Suggs, MS, writes (from New Orleans) that he is now president of four companies - Petroleum Helicopters, tina flore Navigation, Inc; Into: shore Raydist, Inc. Maurice F. Hasler, PhD, president and director of research of the Applied Research Laboratories in Glendale, California, received the $1,000 Beckman Award in chemical instrumentation at the 133rd national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco last month. The prize, sponsored by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in Fullerton, was awarded to Maurice for his leadership in the introduction of devices to investigate compounds by specific measurements of such properties as light intensity, radiant energy and color. Gregory K. Hartmann, technical director of the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory at Silver Spring, Md., received the Defense Department's Distinguished Civilian Service Award from Defense Secretary McElroy last month. The award was given for his leadership as a scientist-executive. He has guided the work of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory since 1955, after serving four years as associate director for research Although most of the work of the Labor. atory cannot be made known because of security restrictions, one of the recent accomplishments under Gregory's direction continued on page 30 FOR RENT For Small Laboratories Approx, 1000 Sq. Ft. $ 80 per month Approx. 1060 Sq. Ft. 85 per month Approx. 1150 Sq. Ft. 90 per month Approx. 1450 Sq. Ft. 125 per month Connecting areas may be combined PERFECT VISION for commercial fluorescent applications when you think of lighting think of SMOOT-HOLMAN PERFECT VISION Luminaires combine attractive styling with even light distribution and high efficiency... easier hanging and lamping. Insist on the genuine, original PERFECT VISION Luminaire. Be sure it carries the SMOOT-HOLMAN label! Write for brochure with performance data SMOOT-HOLMAN COMPANY, Inglewood, California 28 CENTRAL LOCATION Between California Institute of Technology and Glendale-Burbank Manufacturing areas Financing available Parking Property location 2769-2777 West Broadway, Eagle Rock Owner Citrus 1-6342 Engineering and Science MARS outstanding 1+0+000000+000 design SERIES 21st century city The shallow, plastic-faced, Geodesic dome makes this city of the future look strange to zoth century eyes. But designer Philip H. Seligson has combined practical economics with creative thinking in committing his concept to paper. Industries are located at the outer circumference of the city; discharge their smoke through stacks that pierce the dome. Central air conditioning controls the temperature -winter or summer the climate is perfect. Instead of building their own four weather walls and roof, insulating them, heating and cooling them, people can build their walls merely as grilles and curtains. No matter which of today's ideas become reality, it will be as important tomorrow as it is today to use the best of tools when pencil and paper translate a dream into a project. And then, as now, there will be no finer tool than Mars-from sketch to working Mars has long been the standard of professionals. To the famous line of Mars-Technico push-button holders and leads, Mars-Lumograph pencils, and Tra-dition-Aquarell painting pencils, have recently been added these new products: the Mars Pocket-Technico for field use; the efficient Mars lead sharpener and "Draftsman's" Pencil Sharpener with the adjustable point-length feature; and-last but not least-the Mars-Lumochrom, the new colored drafting pencil which offers revolutionary drafting advantages. The fact that it blueprints perfectly is just one of its many important features. ¡The 2886 Mars-Lumograph drawing pencil, 19 degrees, EXEXB to 9H. The 1001 Mars-Technico push-button lead holder. 1904 Mars-Lumograph imported leads, 18 degrees, EXB to 9H. Mars-lumochrom colored drafting pencil, 24 colors. MARS LIMOCHROM DOC GERMANY 9886 1001 （SLSSTAEDTLFB D6 2618 2H J.S. TAEDTLER, INC. HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY: at all good engineering and drawing material suppliers 30 Personals... continued marines. The NOL also has a large and vital part in the current POLARIS project -the intermediate-range missile with nuclear capability that U.S. atomic-powered submarines will soon be able to launch while lying submerged off enemy shores. The Hartmanns live in Garret Park, Md., with their four children. 1937 Martin H. Webster, who has his own law practice in Los Angeles, has just been appointed chairman of the tax committee of the Los Angeles Bar Association. Mar- tin, who specializes in tax and business law, writes: "I can make no promise of tax reductions as a result of this post, but you can be sure that I, and the 45 tax attorneys who serve on the committee with me, will work very hard for tax reforms." Martin and his wife live in Brentwood and have two children-Felicea, 9, and Larry, 7. 1940 Warren H. Vetter is now chief engineer of the Southwest Welding and Mfg. Company in Alhambra, California. Miller Quarles, Jr., '41, writes that he (with his wife and three daughters) changed his address from San Antonio, Texas, to Paris, France, last month. He is now a consulting geophysicist for the re-cently-formed international firm of Com-panie Reynolds de Geophysique. "My wife awaited 20 years for this chance to use the five years of French she took at Occident-al," Miller says, "and she thinks it took a long time for me to show that she could marry a geologist and see the world." 1942 Boyd T. Marshall, MS '43, writes that "after living in Pasadena since graduation, I moved the family to Arcadia about two years ago. We now have a family of three girls and one boy-ages four to twelve. Last year I was elected vice president of the Waste King Corporation in L.A." 1943 Earle R. Atkins, Jr., is now a section leader at the Union Oil Company's Research Center in Brea, California. 1944 William T. Collings, MS '47, has announced the formation of a consulting engineering firm in Milwaukee. The new firm's name is Collings-Vranich and Asso-ciates. Bill was formerly with the engi- neering firm of Klug and Smith in Mil-waukee. Fred Behrens writes a short note on events as far back as 1946. "Since then, I have acquired a wife and three sons-Jim, John and David. We've just expanded, modernized and redecorated our home in Arcadia. "I left Pillsbury Mills, Inc., after nine continued on page 34 Engineering and Science Personals. .. continued years as southern California plant engineer, to work for a consulting firm and technicolor corporation in Hollywood on machine design for 18 months. Now I'm project engineer in charge of machinery research and development at the United Concrete Pipe Corporation in Baldwin Park. My outside activities include being president of the Men's Club of the American Lutheran Church of Arcadia." 1945 James B. Green, formerly midwest dis- trict manager for the Jeffrey Mfg. Com-pany, is now manager of the Fort Worth (Texas) Steel and Machinery Company's engineering sales division. The Greens have four children—a daughter and three sons. 1946 Carl Richardson, MS, works as a materials coordinator at C. F. Braun & Com- pany in Alhambra. He has two daughters, Emogene and Kay. Ali Bulent Cambel, MS, chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and head of the gas dynamics program at Northwestern University, is co-author of a new textbook, Gas Dynamics, published by the McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1948 James Wendel, PhD, writes from Ann Arbor: "I've been associate professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan since the fall of 1955—and we have five children now. Donald A. Darling, Phb'57, and Jack E. McLaughlin, PhD '50, are both here, too." dren-Ronnie, Patty and Barbara. John K. fee is now director, secretar und assistant chief engineer for James M Montgomery, consulting engineer—a Pasadena corporation specializing in hy- draulics, water supply, water treatment, writes that he moved to New Orleans from Roswell, New Mexico, two years ago. He is assistant division geologist with the Continental Oil Company. The Hegglands have a six-year-old daughter, Sherry. William C. A. Woods is now a nuclear engineer with the Ralph M. Parsons Company in Los Angeles and is living in Mon-rovia. Until last summer, Bill worked for the AEC in Washington. Burton B. Rutkin MS '50, is now working as an engineer at the Shell Development Company's Emeryville, California, Research Center. William E. Eilau is a project engineer for the Sandberg-Serrell Corporation in Pasadena. Currently in charge of the design of a hypersonie wind tunnel for one of the local aircraft companies, Bill has with Sandberg-Serrell for the past five years. The Eilaus have three chil Accurate Slide Rule Tie Bar ... Here is a new and different idea designed by an engineering professor to work simple problems. Completely masculine and conservative, it is a perfect gift for the engineer. This unique conversational item is also available in quantity lots to industrial firms, with monogram if desired. For special quantity prices, write Uniquest at the address below. For individual orders use the convenient order blank, enclosing $2.75 for each tie bar ordered. Your slide rule tie bar will come neatly boxed, and complete satisfaction is guaranteed. UNIQUEST 5130 E. 45th St. Tulsa, Oklahoma Please send. Slide Rule Tie Bars to: Name... Street.. City & State... Enclosed find my check or M.O. for $ 34 Neal Huntley, returning to Procter & Gamble from the Army last July, we have bought a home in Anaheim and now have a baby son, Christopher Neal. I am a chemical engineer for synthetic products at P&G's Long Beach plant. Other recent graduates here are Dick Hodges, '54, Bill Chambers, '55, Arne Kalm, '56, and, in June, Don Stock- '58 and Larry Berry, '58, will join us. Phil Conley, '56, just left for two years at the Army Chemical Center, and Terry '53, MS '56, has been transferred to the Kansas City plant." Quayton R. Stottlemyer, working in the research division of Du Pont's photo products department at the Parlin, New Jersey, laboratory. He re- ceived his PhD in physical chemistry from Penn State this year. Mark Cher received his PhD from Har- vard University last month. Charlton Dunn, III, is working with the applied mechanics group at the Rocket-dyne division at North American Aviation in Los Alamos. 1955 Oreste W. Lombardi is now chief chem- ist for the Columbia Southern Chemical Corporation in Bartlett, California. Alfred M. Goldman, MS '56, writes that he was released from active duty at the Air Research and Development Command headquarters in Baltimore last December and is now an aeronautical engineer in the aerodynamics department of the Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City. Robert L. Metzenberg, Jr., PhD, research associate in physiological chemistry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, has been appointed a Scholar in Medical Science by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation of New York. Bob is one of 25 appointees who will share in $750,000 which has been appropriated toward their support to the schools where they will teach and do research. Thomas H. Bergeman received his Master of Arts degree from Harvard University last month. 1957 Michael Bleicher is studying for his MS at Tulare University, and also teaching freshman calculus. The Bleichers are enjoying New Orleans-finding it "a fas- cinating, cosmopolitan and very rainy city." Engineering and Science Alumni Seminar Day "The question is if something is built exactly like a mirror reflection- in reverse-will it work the same? That is, are the laws of physics the same when we reflect all the equipment to make a mirror image?" "Say we telephone some being on another planet and tell him how to build a model man. If he is made out of the same gunk as we are, then he builds the model with the heart on the left side-but if he is made of anti-matter, he'll put the heart on the right." A record total of 1185 alumni, wives and guests came to the campus for the 21st annual Alumni Seminar on April 12-almost double the attendance of previous years. Nine lectures on subjects ranging from physics to philosophy were featured on the morning program. (If the audience shown below is any indication, the program was an unqualified success. They're listening to Richard P. Feynman, professor of physics, talk about the non-conservation of parity.) In the afternoon, the visitors had a choice of 18 exhibits and demonstrations (including the last scheduled appearance of the high volts demonstration, the spectacular electrical display that has been one of Caltech's best shows for the past 35 years. H. Rowan Gaither, chairman of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation, was the main speaker at the evening banquet. His talk, "Science and the National Welfare," is on page 9 of this issue. "Then we find a way to go and visit this guy and get a chance to meet his model man. If this model starts to shake hands with his right hand-go ahead and shake." "But if he holds out his left hand look out. You'll annihilate each other!" The Month at Caltech Two new buildings Two of the sixteen buildings which (along with increased faculty salaries) are the goal of Caltech's $16,-100,000 Development Program have now been assured by recent gifts to the Institute. A gift of $350,000 from Gordon A. Alles of Pasadena means that a major addition to the facilities of the Biology Division can now be built. And a gift of $335,-000 from P. G. Winnett of Los Angeles will provide the Institute with the first student activities center it has ever had. Dr. Alles' gift will finance in large part a five-story building that is needed for rapidly expanding research and teaching in virology, biochemistry, biophysies, immunology and psychobiology. The new building, forming a link between the present Kerckhoff and Church laboratories, will be located near the northwest corner May, 1958 Gordon A. Alles of the campus, and will be known as The Gordon A. Alles Laboratory for Molecular Biology. The total cost of the building is estimated at $900,000, of which $391,500 has been pledged by the U.S. Public Health Service. Mr. Winnett's gift will finance a two-story building that will contain offices for student publications, meeting rooms for the student governing body, headquarters for the student YMCA and headquarters for Throop Club. The building will also contain a new campus bookstore, a student shop, a game room and a lounge. The student union will be located near San Pasqual Street, on the site of the present campus coffee shop, and is to be known as The Winnett Center. Detailed plans are now being worked out by a faculty student committee, in consultation with architects, but construction cannot begin for about two years-after new student houses and a new cafeteria have been built. 13 Dr. Gordon A. Alles, chemist and pharmacologist, received his BS (1922), MS (1924), and PhD (1926) degrees from Caltech. His major interest has been in natural and synthetic drug chemicals, with particular regard to the relations between their molecular structures and their biologic actions. He did early research on the isolation and properties of insulin, and has specialized in the study of the "sympathomimetic" drugs. In 1928, he discovered the physiological properties of benzedrine and contributed to its development as a drug. This drug and dexedrine, which was developed from the discovery, have had world-wide medical use as general brain stimulants. Dr. Alles has been a research associate in biology at Caltech since 1939. Since 1931 he has been a lecturer in pharmacology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, and since 1951 he has been Professor in Residence of pharmacology at UCLA. From 1934 to 1951 he was consultant for Smith, Kline & French Laboratories. Mr. Winnett, who has been a member of Caltech's board of trustees since 1939, is a native of Winnipeg, Canada, where he was born in 1881. He went directly from school into merchandising and was one of the founders of Bullock's Inc., in 1906. He was president of the corporation from 1933 to 1950 and has since been chairman of the board. He is president of the Bullock Foundation, the Winnett Foundation and the Santa Anita George W. Beadle, chairman of Caltech's Biology Division and winner of the 1958 Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in the field of science. 14 Charity Foundation. He is a trustee of the Letts Foun- as chairman of the Los Angeles Area War Chest during the war years and later as chairman of the Community Welfare Federation. He was the organizer and first chairman of the Citizens' Transportation Committee which conducted the original survey for the Los Angeles Freeway System. In addition to his gift for the student activities center, Mr. Winnett has also recently given Caltech $75,000 for its expanding program of research in radio astronomy. Einstein Awards George W. Beadle, chairman of Caltech's Biology Division has just received the 1958 Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in the field of science. The award was presented to him at the third annual Einstein Commemorative dinner on May 4 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. These awards, presented by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, were inaugurated on the first anniversary of Einstein's death to lend recognition to outstanding achievement in the fields of Science, Medicine, Citizenship, the Humanities and the Arts. Each award carries a cash prize of $1,000 and a commemorative medallion. Other award winners this year include Selman Waks-man, director of the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University (Medicine); Marion Folsom, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (Citizenship) ; Archibald MacLeish, Boylston Professor at Harvard University (Humanities) ; and Marian Anderson, the singer (Arts). Guggenheim Fellowships Four staff members from Caltech and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships for the coming year: Dr. Robert Finn, associate professor of mathematics; Dr. Yuan Cheng Fung, associate professor of aeronautics; Dr. John Laufer, JPL research specialist; and Dr. Guido Munch, associate professor of astronomy and staff member of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories. Dr. Finn will use the grant to continue his studies of non-linear partial differential equations at the Technical University in Berlin. Starting in November, he will also be a guest lecturer there for six months. A graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he got his PhD from Syracuse University in 1951, and came to Caltech in 1956. Dr Fung, an aerodynamicist, will be investigating the thermodynamics of irreversible processes at Gottingen, Germany, and at Delft University in Holland. After receiving his MS degree from National Central University in Chungking, China, in 1943 he came to Caltech Engineering and Science and received his PhD here in 1948. He joined the staff the same year. Dr. Laufer is interested in measuring characteristics of air turbulence, such as the decay of turbulent shear flow. Though he will travel to many aeronautics laboratories in Italy, his headquarters will be at the Polytechnic Institute of Turin. A mechanical engineering graduate of Louisiana State University, he came to Caltech in 1942, received his MS here in 1943 and his PhD in 1948. He has been at JPL for the past six years. Dr. Munch plans to study the theoretical aspects of the motion of interstellar matter in our galaxy, the Milky Way, at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Got-tingen. Having been interested in theoretical astrophysics and mathematics for several years, his investigations will be concerned with the origin of interstellar gas and its relation to magnetic fields within the galaxy. After receiving his BS in 1938 and MS in 1944 from the Uni-versidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, he came to the United States and got his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1947. He has been a member of the Caltech staff since 1951. NAS member Frank Press, professor of geophysics at Caltech and director of the Institute's Seismological Laboratory has just been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences one of the highest scientific honors in the nation. Election to the Academy is in recognition of outstanding achievement in scientific research, and membership is limited to 500 American citizens and 50 foreign asso-ciates. The election of Dr. Press brings the number of Caltech staff members in the Academy to 31. Frank Press's research contributions cover a wide range of subjects in geology, geophysics and seismology -including microseisms (the continuous ground unrest of the earth's surface) ; the geologic structure of the ocean floor, derived from artificially-produced waves; the behavior of waves in floating Arctic ice sheets; the crustal structure of the earth based on earthquake-wave propa-gation; and the generation of sound waves in the atmosphere by earthquakes. A native of New York City, Frank Press was gradu- ated from the College of the City of New York in 1944. He received his MS in 1946 and his PhD in 1949 from Columbia University, where he taught from 1945 to 1955. In addition to teaching, he was employed on research contracts with the U.S. Navy and Air Force, Nay md xit Do re served on the scientific staff of numerous oceanographic expeditions, and, on a tour of duty for UNESCO, set up a system of seismological stations in Israel. He was an associate professor of geophysics at Columbia and a member of the research staff of the university's Lamont Geological Observatory when he left to come to Caltech in 1955. He has been head of the Seismological Laboratory here since the retirement of Dr. Beno Gutenberg in 1957. May, 1958 Frank Press, Caltech professor of geophysics and director of the Institute's Seismological Laboratory, is a new member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Press is currently a member of the Continental Committee of the International Geophysical Year, which is in charge of overall planning of all IGY research projects on this continent. He is also a member of the IGY's Technical Panel on Glaciology, of the Seismology and Gravity Panel and of the Polar Research Committee. New electrostatic generator The delivery date is about two years away, but Cal-tech's Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy is drawing up plans now to house a big new 100,000,000-volt electrostatic generator. The Office of Naval Research has agreed to supply the $1,000,000 generator itself, but Caltech will have to build a large room, with thick concrete walls and other heavy shielding, in which to house it. The machine will be located in the basement of the proposed Mathematics and Physics building on the cam-pus, adjacent to the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory. This building now houses the High-Voltage Laboratory, but, as part of the Caltech Development Program, the interior will be completely altered to provide quarters for mathematics and physics research. The Institute already has three electrostatic generators housed in the Kellogg Laboratory. They have served to investigate the thermonuclear fusion reaction of light nuclei such as those of hydrogen and helium, which are energy sources in stars. The new 10-mev machine will make it possible to study heavier atomic nuclei and fusion processes. 15 ENGINEERING | AND | SCIENCE MAY/ 1958 The coldest spot in the world…. page 18 PUBLISHED AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Want to see a pinhead - 47 feet wide? The head of a pin would appear about 47 feet wide if examined under this instrument. It's an electron probe microanalyzer-the first to be used industrially in this country. U. S. Steel research teams use it to get a better look at the microstructure of new types of steel. In this way, they gather more information about the factors affecting steel quality and performance. Research like this is only the start of the big job at U. S Steel. We have to find more ore, mine it, ship it, make it into steel, market it (and market many by-products, too) and deliver it to our customers. The job calls for a lot of good people- metallurgists, physicists, chemists, geologists, all kinds of engineers-people with your training. Look into the possibility of a career with United States Steel. Write for our booklet, • "Paths of Opportunity." United States Steel, Personnel Division, Room 1662, 525 William Penn Place, Pittsburgh 30, Pa. USS is a registered trademark UsS United States Steel "I'm in the business and I know... "Not too long ago I was in the same situation you fellows are in now. Senior year and the big de-cisions. What am I going to do with my education? What am I going to do for a living? "Well, I talked to a number of people and did as much letter writing and looking around as I could. The way I figured it, I wanted opportunity... a fair chance to put my capabilities to work and to be recognized for what I could do. Of course, I wanted to be well paid, too. It all seemed to add up to the aircraft industry... and to me it still does. "In the space of just a few years I've worked on quite a few projects, important projects that some day may mean a great deal to this country. They sure meant a lot to me. And I wasn't standing still either. My salary and my responsibilities have increased with each promotion. That means lots of challenges, new and tough problems that we have to solve, but that's the way I like it. So, i you want some advice from this "old grad," choose the aircraft industry. It's the wisest choice, I'm in the business and I know." Probably no other industry in America has growi so tast and advanced so tar in a short tume as ha‹ the aircraft industry. And yet there is no limit to how far man's inventiveness and imagination can push the boundaries. Radical new concepts that would have been unthought of just a few years ago are the drawing-board problems of today. Truly aviation is still in the pioneering stage, and one of the leaders is Northrop Aircraft, which has been making successful contributions to our nation's defense for over 18 years. Projects such as the Snark SM-62, world's first intercontinental guided missile, have identified Northrop as a successful pioneer. And new aircraft such as the super-sonic, twin-jet T-38 advanced trainer are maintaining this reputation. Let us tell you more about what Northrop can offer you. Write now, regardless of your class, to Manager of Engineering Industrial Relations, Northrop Division, Northrop Aircraft, Inc., 1034 East Broadway, Hawthorne, California. NORTHROP A Division of Northrop Aircraft, Inc. BUILDERS OF THE FIRST INTERCONTINENTAL GUIDED MISSILE May, 1958 = до INQUIRING MIND -Young Research Engineer Edward Klomp (center) -B.S. '52, M.S. '53-using smoke tunnel to investigate stall propagation of axial flow compressors. His work is guided by William Turunen (top left) -B.S. '39, M.S. '46-head of the Gas Turbines Department at GM Research-and results recorded by technician George Josie on motion-picture film. Because engineering is a profession at GM-your talents can take you to the top Commencement literally means a beginning-although it marks the end of your undergraduate days. Perhaps one of your classmates - or you, yourself - has decided to start a career with General Motors. It's a wise choice for many reasons but particularly for this one: Engineering is a profession at GM. And the engineers who work on our hundreds of products are respected as professional men. To a young engineer that fact is a key consideration. For professional recognition carries with it many bene-fits. The freedom to give your imagination free rein. The opportunity to pioneer significant developments in the engineering art. The chance to become a key executive in a great corporation. The fact that more than 179 of our engineers and scientists received more than 164 patents in a recent four-month period is one measure of the intellectual freedom engineers have at GM. 2 And the fact that 14 of our 33 Vice-Presidents-23 of our 42 Division General Managers-are engineers is an indication of the advancement opportunities for engineering graduates at GM. General Motors is made up of 35 Divisions with 126 plants in 71 cities and 19 states. Many of the young men who join us today will hold top positions with those Divisions and plants 10 to 15 years from now. One of those men could well be your classmate-or you. GM positions now available in these fields: MECHANICAL ENGINEERING • ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING • METALLURGICAL ENGINEERING AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING • CERAMIC ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS • INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PHYSICS • CHEMISTRY GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION Personnel Staff, Detroit 2, Michigan Engineering and|Science ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE IN THIS ISSUE MAY, 1958 VOLUME XXI PUBLISHED AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE NUMBER 8 OF TECHNOLOGY CONTENTS In This Issue Books 3 6 9 Science and the National Welfare Our survival depends on our ability to act deci-sively-and now. by H. Rowan Gaither ON THE COVER-John R. Pellam, Caltech professor of physics, and the spectacular glass structure he uses to condense helium 3 for his low-tem-perature research. Helium is forced by mercury through the glass bulbs to the silver dewar at the left. By pressure, and a temperature of 1.° K., the helium is condensed into about 1 cc. of fluid. Only one small drop of this may be the actual rare isotope, helium 3, which is now being used for studies of absolute zero. For more about low-temperature physics, see page 18. H. ROwAN GAITHeR, whose Alumni Seminar speech, "Science and the National Welfare, " appears on page 9 of this issue, is chairman of the board of the Ford Foundation, and the Rand Corporation. He is also chairman of the science resources panel of President Eisenhower's Science Advisory Committee, whose still-secret "Gaither Report" stirred up considerable excitement in the press recently. The Month at Caltech Alumni Seminar Day—1958 13 16 The Coldest Spot in the World It's in a vacuum tube in the low-temperature physics laboratory. by Jane Werner Watson 18 Personals 28 STAFF Publisher Editor and Business Manager Editorial Assistant Student News Student Photographers Richard C. Armstrong '28 Edward Hutchings, Jr. Gerda Chambers Brad Efron '60 Dennis L. Paul '59 William R. Schmus '60 PICTURE CREDITS Cover pps. 13,14,15 pps. 16,17 p. 19 May, 1958 Richard Hartt Harvey Graphic Arts, Caltech Richard Hartt Published monthly, October through June, at the California Institute of Tech-nology, 1201 East California St., Pasadena, graduate students and alumni of the Calif., for the undergraduates, Annual subscription $3.50 domestic, $4.50 foreign, single copies 50 cents. Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Pasadena, California, on September 6, 1939, under act of March 3, 1879. All Publisher's Rights Reserved. Reproduction of material contained herein forbidden without written authorization. Manuscripts and all other editorial correspondence should be addressed to: The Editor, Engineering and Science, California Institute of Technology. © 1958 Alumni Association. California Institute of Technology. Printed in Pasadena PP 3 Books Modern Science and the Nature of Life by William S. Beck Harcourt, Brace and Co., N.Y. $5.75 The Dawn of Life by J. H. Rush Hanover House, N.Y. $4.50 Reviewed George W. Chairman of the Biology Division Beadle These are exciting days in the biology laboratory. Viruses are disemboweled and reassembled in ways that promise to reveal the innermost molecular secrets of these simplest of known living systems. The structure of the protein molecule and the sequences of its amino acid building blocks are yielding to the patience and persistence of chemists. The detailed structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is understood in ways that promise to tell us how this carrier of genetic information is reproduced at each cell division with almost unbelievable precision. And we are close to an understanding of the manner in which this gene material undergoes mutation-the basis of all organic evolution-and the mechanism by which the information coded within it is used in the synthesis of the thousands of kinds of protein molecules of which we are so largely built. Biochemists seem on the verge of a complete synthesis of nucleic acid of the type that could have been the beginning of organic evolution on earth. If man succeeds in making such a primitive "living" molecule in a test tube-living because it can both reproduce and evolve-it will no longer seem miraculous. The mystery of life is rapidly being replaced by understanding--the deep and rewarding understanding that is the goal of all science. Many of these breakthroughs in biology have been made by chemists and physicists who have responded to the challenge of the problems of biology. 4 With Sputniks, Explorers and Van-guards, public interest in science in general has been raised to a high pitch, even though the orbiting satellites are not themselves science but are rather spectacular technological applications of science. We are barraged with information and misinformation about fallout from tests of nuclear weapons and its mutation-producing properties. The man in the street argues with the doctor about whether that recommended X-ray examination or treatment will make monsters of his chil-dren. The ninth-grade member of the Science Club asks: "What is the difference between DNA and RNA?" It is good that the urge to know about science in general and biology in particular has grown to such pro-portions, for more and more the decisions that affect the future of our free and democratic society involve science and its applications. The two books reviewed here should go a long way toward satisfying the non-specialist's thirst for knowledge about the new biology, and for an understanding of its proper place in the science that has become such an important part of man's culture. William Beck's delightfully written book is the more general of the two. It describes science as science, and examines it from a sound and informative philosophical point of view. In the author's own words: "This book is being written in the belief that science and scientific methods are the best means available to us for solving the problems of our cultural crisis. Science is, beyond question, the outstanding feature of modern civilization. Our world is, to an increasing extent, dominated, if not by pure science itself, then by the conceptions of the public at large and its leaders concerning the nature of science. More and more, this idea of science, misunderstood through it is, has gained in influence, and, as its status has changed, great new problems have arisen, many of which have yet even to be identified as problems by the majority of people. "It can be argued, I think (and I intend to argue), that much of humanity's present difficulty stems from the paradoxically strained relations between science and the other areas of knowledge, and from the surpassing paradoxes within science itself, the very ingredients which make it such a frustrating and delightful mistress to its practitioners. "These paradoxes are an important cause of the present crisis; they are its consequences and one of its best examples. For the essence of science is paradox and, in trying to explain science, this is one of the main points I hope to get across. "To the mid-twentieth-century citi-zen, science is an almost grotesquely ambivalent phenomenon: it is at the same time highly systematic in its approach to the real world, yet it is never complete and never reaches final conclusions. It is the model of certainty in its methodology and logic, yet its driving force is delib. erate doubt, and its results are prob able, never certain. It requires of its workers absolute discipline, yet it is the fountainhead of exciting new ideas and new ways of thought. Though it may be local in origin, its conclusions are universal. For its creators it is a supreme adventure of the spirit, while at the same time it is the sole basis of endless reams of myth and superstition. It is the heal. er and builder and the propagator of untold suffering and death. Is it any wonder that science, the strong, the promising, the unforeseeable, the anarchical force in our modern world, should be the cause of acute anxiety?" Beck goes on to discuss such topics as the nature of science, how biology became a science, what is certainty, the cell as a unit of life, how life evolves, the nature of life, the technique of discovery, genes, viruses, the origin of life, the problem of cancer and the nature of mind. All these Engineering and|Science CREATIVITY and PRODUCIBILITY Basic research has been described as "a search for knowl-edge, unfettered by production demands." At Aveo, we realize that fundamental new ideas cannot be programmed in advance to fit the needs of even the highest priority schedule. There will always be room here for this kind of basic creative work. Yet, as an industrial research operation, we want to realize the material benefits that have historically resulted from scientific breakthroughs. Economic common sense and national security require an industrial research structure that can transform the idea in a scientist's brain into workable, useful hardware. We see nothing inconsistent in the pursuit of new products simultaneously with the pursuit of new ideas-and doing both under the same roof. Rather, we feel that the continuous feedback resulting from close association of basic research people, applied scientists and engineers, test engineers and product engineers does as much for creativity as for producibility. And America's future depends upon a good supply of both. Robert D. Grouge Robert D. Grange, Manager, Prototype Development Department Robert D. Grange Pictured above is our new Research and Development Center now under construction in Wilmington, Massachusetts. Scheduled for completion this year, the ultramodern laboratory will house the scientifie and technical staff of the Avco Research and Advanced Development Division. Avco's new research division now offers unusual and exciting career opportunities for exceptionally qualified and forward-looking scientists and engineers. Write to Dr. R. W. Johnston, Scientific and Technical Relations, Avco Research and Advanced Development Division, 20 South Union Street, Lawrence, Massachusetts. Ayeo Research & Advanced Development Books . •continued things he does with wit, skill and a Mars, perhaps, or Venus, or the un- refreshing literary style. known planetary families attending Rush concerns himself mainly other stars—are peopled by life and with living systems. His is a more even intelligence. This preoccupa- nearly straightforward presentation tion leads one immediately to won- of the subject matter of modern biol der about the adaptability of life ogy. The thread of continuity is to radically different environments, evolution, inorganic and organic, and to make some educated guesses from the primordial earth to the as to the conditions that prevail on present. other planets. It is but a step from More and more we are coming to such thoughts to the more funda- see that evolution is a continuous mental question of the origin of life, process from the hydrogen of the on earth or elsewhere. primitive universe, through elements, inorganic molecules, complex carbon Showing the way compounds, simple virus-like sys- "This book is not intended to give tems, and on to man himself. an answer to the riddle of life's At first thought this concept may origin, but to point a direction. The seem crudely and revoltingly materi- principle of rational inquiry, of reas- alistic. It seems to leave no room oning logically from experience, has for a Creator. But when one asks served us well. Its range of applica- the question, "Does it require less tion broadens as science consolidates faith in a universe so designed as to its gains. Yet we have only very re- be capable of giving rise to man by cently learned enough of astronomy an orderly process of evolution than and physics, of the earth's history, it does to accept the creation of man of chemistry and biology, to be able in his present state?" one sees that to bring the origin of life out of the modern science has in no way realm of pure conjecture. The de- changed the problem of what lies tailed ideas and interpretations set beyond the knowable. forth in this book undoubtedly will be drastically modified as our under- Dawn of life standing grows; but I do not believe Rush, a physicist, tells us in his that the direction in which they lead preface how he became interested in our thinking will be changed. That biology and what he attempts to ac- direction is expressed in the convic- complish in his book: tion that life is a natural phenom- "Sometime between the formation enon in the same sense that the phe- of the earth and the advent of man, nomena of inanimate matter are nat- the first tentative organic systems ural, and that life will develop out crossed the uncertain boundary line of non-living material wherever suit-from the non-living world to that of able conditions prevail for a suff- the living. The origin of life is a cient time." uniquely appealing mystery. It is The book includes a discussion of something that ungestionably hap the ever-fascinating possibility of life pened, an event in the finite past. Yet on other solar planets and elsewhere the idea of a world without life, and in the universe. It concludes with a the manner by which life came into chapter on the emergence of mind it, both challenge the imagination to that remarkable product of evolution the utmost. I developed an active that has made it possible for man to interest in the subject out of my pro- add cumulative cultural inheritance, fessional work in physics and astron- including science, to the blind biol omy. No one, I believe, can be con- ogical inheritance of his evolution- cerned with the throng of planets ary forbears. and stars and galaxies that fill the I know of no easier or more enjoy- depths of space without wondering able way to learn about the new bi- whether other worlds than ours- ology than to read these two books. 6 Why Vought Projects Bring Out The Best In An Engineer At Vought, the engineer doesn't often forget past assignments. Like all big events, they leave vivid memories. And it's no wonder. For here the engineer contributes to history-making projects —among them the record-breaking Crusader fighter; the Regulus Il missile, chosen to arm our newest nuclear subs; and the new fast-developing 1,500-plus-mph fighter, details of which are still classified. The Vought engineer watches such weapons take shape. He supervises critical tests, and he introduces the weapons to the men with whom they will serve. Engineers with many specialties share these experiences. Today, for exam-ple, Vought is at work on important projects involving: electronics design and manufacture inertial navigation investigation of advanced propulsion methods Mach 5 configurations Vought's excellent R&D facilities help the engineer through unexplored areas. And by teaming up with other specialists against mutual challenges, the Vought engineer learns new fields *** Would you like to know what men with your training are doing at Vought... what you can expect of a Vought career? For full information, see our representative during his next campus visit. *** Or write directly to: C. A. Besio Supervisor, Engineering Personnel Dept. CM-8 VuGHT AIRCRAFT Engineering and|Science A Vought Vignette ONE OF A SERIES Soot Solved This Problem One thing Richard (Rick) MacDonnell could say for flight test instrumentation — it had variety. Here he was, in line of duty, hunting a coal oil lamp on the Mojave Desert. Looking back, Rick saw that the whole Crusader instrumentation program had been a series of shifting scenes. He'd started by talking to different specialists, finding out the kinds of flight information they wanted. He learned a lot about heats, loads, amplitudes and flutter. These were the things Rick's instrumentation would have to detect. Designing and building the system took him in another direction. There was the airborne equipment — up to 12 miles of wiring and 600 pounds of black boxes for a single demonstration aircraft. Each sub-system was environment-tested, breadboarded, checked out and packaged to fit key corners of the Crusader structure. Taking shape at the same time was a mobile ground station — another project with which Rick was asso-ciated. It brought flight test telemetering and data processing closer to automation than they'd ever been before. At Vought's Mojave Desert test base. Rick's equipment clicked. It speeded preparation for the Crusader's dramatic operational debut— the Thompson Trophy-winning speed run. There was just one hitch — a National Aeronautical Association rule which would limit altitude deviation to 328 feet during the Trophy dash. A Bureau of Standards barograph would ride with the pilot, its stylus etching out exact altitude on a smoked cylin-der. Fair enough — but Vought's desert crew didn't have a workable way to blacken duplicate cylinders for practice. And precise warm-up flights were That's why Rick went hunting for a coal oil lamp. He found one in the store of a desert outfitter. Back on the base, the lamp was lighted and the wick turned up. It "sooted" the purpose perfectly. Instrumentation means development adventure and variety at Chance Vought. Here, engineers of all specialties use initiative and self-expression to contribute to some of the most advanced instrumentation techniques in the industry. CHANS HT AIRCRAFT ATED. TEXAS May, 1958 7 Alfred North Whitehead..on the passion for discovery "Disinterested scientific curiosity is a passion for passion for discovery. He does not discover in order an ordered intellectual vision of the connection of to know, he knows in order to discover. The pleas- events. But the goal of such curiosity is the ure which art and science can give to toil is the marriage of action to thought. This essential inter- enjoyment which arises from successtully directed vention of action even in abstract science is often intention. Also it is the same pleasure which is overlooked. No man of science wants merely to yielded to the scientist and to the artist." know. He acquires knowledge to appease his -The Aims of Education, 1917 THE RAND CORPORATION, SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA A nonprofit organization engaged in research on problems related to national security and the public interest 8 Engineering land|Science Volume XXI ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE May, 1958 Science and the National Welfare Our survival depends on our ability to act decisively - - and now by H. Rowan Gaither It is now just six months since the human race propelled some exciting hardware, and then man's best friend, into outer space. I do not have to remind anyone here that the first successful adventurers into this new age of outer space were not Americans, as we hoped would be the case, but Russians. Americans have shared outer space with the Russians for only a part of this time. And for that success, delayed though it was by decisions of a non-scientific and nontechnical nature, the American people must thank the men of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From the date the job finally was authorized by Washington until the first American earth satellite shot up, and out, and into orbit took only 12 weeks. This is nothing if not remarkable. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the date history will attach to the opening of the age of outer space will be a date written in Cyrillic characters. This is not a belated, dubious, or cynical claim like those we became familiar with several years back-when Russia was telling the world and itself that practically every technical and scientific advance known to man was Russian in origin. This claim on the original penetration of outer space is real-and we cannot afford the luxury of derisive laughter. From all the confusion that ensued in the wake of Russia's first Sputnik, one might almost think our scientific and technological impulse had ground to an unhappy halt and that the only thing left to wait for was the end itself. One might even conclude from the furor that no one in the scientific community had engaged in responsible thinking about any of our most critical needs. I think it is fair to point out that some of the loudest critics of the scientific community in recent years may very well have drowned out what the scientists were trying to tell us. I come neither as a critic nor as a scientist. I should "Science and the National Welfare" has been adapted from a talk given by Mr. Gaither at Caltech's 21st annual Alumni Seminar on April 12. Mr. Gaither is chairman of the trustees of the Ford Foundation. May, 1958 like to talk with you about science and the national wel. fare in the language of one who is himself not a man of science or technology. I would not be so presumptuous as to try to tell you how your job should be done. But in all conscience I can talk with you in terms of what the job ahead is, as I see it. My premise is simple. Science and the national welfare are linked insolubly. This is as true for the Russians as it is for ourselves. It is necessary to understand- as now indeed we do-that science and technology are not a monopoly of the free nations. We face real needs and hard choices. So let us first of all do away with the soft words. I am convinced of three interrelated propositions: First, that our national welfare and to us that means spiritual and political freedom as well as mere physical survival-depends to a preponderant and unmeasurable degree upon the future course of American science and technology. Second, that American science and technology, which once our people thought to be unquestionably unsurpass-ed, has not yet attained the strength and viability necessary to guarantee our welfare and survival in a prolong. ed period of international crisis. Third, the American people and their representatives in government must understand the extent to which their progress and security depend upon science and technol ogy—-and must understand what large tasks await us all in this connection. As of this moment, this understanding still has not been fully awakened. There is evidence that whatever awareness has developed under the impact of recent events may already be receding in the light of our own successful orbiting of satellites. We must guard zealously against any return to complacency. The responsibility for this rests on each of us—on our men of government, on our men of edu-cation, our men of industry, on the citizens at large and even on the institutions which already are most responsive to the needs. America must view its strengths and weaknesses in the 9 time perspective of the remaining years of the 20th cen-tury, in the social perspective of what we want America to be, in the politico-military perspective of the external threats to our values and principles, and in the humanitarian perspective of our acknowledged responsibilities to mankind everywhere. In this total perspective, the relative strength of the United States is not adequate to these historic responsi-bilities. I will not, however, be a prophet of gloom. There is time to repair this situation and to build our relative strength-if we act decisively and act now. The United States is the world's most powerful nation today. If we act now it will remain the most powerful nation in the future. Let us look forward a few years- to 1975. This is only as far into the future as we already have come from Pearl Harbor; and we know what vast changes have affected mankind in that short span of years. Let us, for purposes of our discussion, make several assumptions. Let us assume, first, that there will be no general nuclear war during these next two decades. We must base this on the further assumption that our nation will maintain a military capacity for retaliation that will stay the hand of any would-be aggressor. Let us assume also that the principal communist pow-ers, the Soviet Union and Red China, will remain politi-ically intact and stable. And let us assume that the political destiny of the newly independent and largely underdeveloped nations of Africa and Asia will largely be determined during these two critical decades. The communist world Based on these assumptions, the communist world as we define it today will present in the 1970's the following picture: It will have a subjugated population of upwards of 1¼ billion people; It will command, as it does today, one-third of the world's land mass; It will have weapons and weapons systems capable of delivering catastrophic destruction in a matter of minutes to any nation of the world, and a general military capability of engaging in conventional wars in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa; And the Soviet Union, perhaps alone, will have reached a gross national product at least equal to that of the United States, with all the implications inherent in that for their military expenditures and for their ceaseless economic and political offensives in the non-communist world. Forecasting the future comparative growths of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is, within certain limits, necessarily speculative. There is conservative economic opinion that the likely future rate of Soviet industrial growth will be significantly higher than ours, that the interval for which we will remain the biggest industrial power is 15 to 30 10 years. But the "cross-over" point in either gross national product or in industrial output is not as meaningful as the fact that today the Soviet Union, with an industrial base roughly two-fifths of ours, maintains a thoroughly modernized and menacing military establishment and prosecutes an increasing program of foreign economic subversion and infiltration. Russia is currently graduating 500 engineers per billion dollars of GNP while we are graduating about 60. What this portends for the future relative rate at which technological creativity is injected into the Russian economy and military technology, and for the scientific manpower serving the communists' military purposes and economic offensives, is arguable in degree but ominous in total. These are some of the blunt and awesome facts that come clear as we look at the future in perspective. We dare not comfort ourselves with hollow hopes. Key to the future Our total relative strength is the key to the future. This strength at any given moment is a compound of many factors-populations, economic forces, scientific achieve-ment, military capability, industrial progress, educational commitments. Communism's strength relative to the free world is based on the same factors. The communist world and the free world are two dynamic systems at work, moving at different rates of speed, taking different turns, and driving ultimately toward ideological goals which are diametrically opposed. If we are to plan with any degree of hard realism, we must expect the Russians not only will maintain but actually will increase their rate of forward industrial and economic development. And let us not underestimate the potential power of Red China. It is on this basis that I must conclude that our relative strength is ebbing. There are those who will argue that my assumptions put the communist position in the most optimistic light possible and, by contrast, our position in a pessimistic light. I fervently hope that, in this, history will prove I am in gross error. But I will contend, with all the emphasis at my command, that these assumptions are war-ranted-indeed compelled-by any objective appraisal and that we cannot lose if we make them and act accord-ingly. We will have maintained a constant military readiness to suppress with strength the possibility of nuclear disaster at home and throughout the free world. We will have cut wasteful fat from our economic and social frame and hardened our ideological muscle. Our society will have had the incalculable benefit of research, education and expansion from which so much of our future economic and democratic strength will derive. We will be fully prepared for almost any eventuality of the decades ahead. If time ultimately proves my assumption of communist strength to be grossly overestimated, then the United States and all mankind will be the beneficiary on every count of our expanded effort. Engineering and|Science H. G. Wells said that "human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." We are intimately involved in this race. Science, of course, is but one part of education's total job important in the extreme, but only one part. Education must produce enlightened human beings determined to preserve fundamental values and principles. It must produce an informed citizenry able to accept responsibility and to make democratic processes fully effective even in a protracted period of great stress. It must produce political leaders for the management of government, and judicial leaders to uphold the supremacy of law and reason. It must produce leaders for all sectors of our society who place foremost our freedoms and economic strengths, and scholars, scientists and teachers adequate in number and competence to meet the ever-growing demands already confronting our heavily committed educational resources. The role of education in the decades ahead being as all-encompassing as it is, why do I equate to such a large degree our national welfare with science? I see three major reasons. The power to destroy The first is the inescapable if burdensome call for mili- tary technology of the highest order. The nature of Rus- sian and American weapons development is such that when intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads are operational, the United States and Russia will possess the power to destroy each other. The second major reason that I equate our national welfare and science is that the security of the United States and the free world depends upon the ability of our nation and our allies to maintain economic strength and viability. We know the counterpull of economic weakness and debility. A strong economy is basic to national welfare-and nothing feeds and invigorates the economy more than science and technology. The third major reason for equating the national wel. fare and science is that it is imperative for the industrialized nations of the free world to assist the less-developed nations of the free world in their Herculean task of achieving better standards of living for their peoples and the foundations for economic development with democratic principles. The ultimate course of civilization and freedom may depend on whether they succeed or fail in attaining these goals. That our communist competitors know their destiny too turns largely on science and technology is abundantly clear. From the very outset of their communist regimes, both the Soviet Union and Red China have made industrialization overriding national objectives. In the pursuit of this, extraordinary emphasis has been put on science and technology in the school systems of those countries. What then can be done to bolster our scientific and technological strength? First and foremost, education in science and technol ogy must be improved at all levels. May, 1958 Our objective must be to produce men and women who are both superbly trained in science and technology and broadly educated. And we need men and women in the humanities and social sciences who are educated in the physical and natural sciences and technology as well. We cannot settle for less. We must subject ourselves to a searching self-scrutiny as to curriculum content and techniques. We must hold the best science teachers in their honored and vital profession and increase their numbers and competence. Improving education The upcoming generation of students must be better prepared for the rigors of advanced study. We must guard against the preoccupation of the day and remind ourselves that boys and girls in our high schools today will be the new scientists and engineers in the most critical period in our history. Not only must they be assured of the best education we can devise, but also they must not be denied that education for economic reasons. We must get on with the task of improving education today— even though we do not find all the solutions for many years to come. In this connection, those institutions which even now carry the special burden of leadership, institutions like your own California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others, have an urgent and weighty responsibility to our national wel. fare. In addition, these great institutions must now take on a strong, new role-education of the general public about the role of science and technology as an integral part of our whole social fabric. Never before has it been so important that there be public understanding of science as a part of our culture and of the essential nature of science to our security and our progress. Without such widespread understanding there cannot develop the support which is desperately needed. The classical role of institutions such as those I have named has embraced both education and research. Now additional stress must be put on the improvement of research. The research function has been augmented, particularly in periods of national peril, to provide scientific assistance to government. This responsibility has been built into the very structure of these institutions, and will remain there, I think, forever even as such institutions have provided ever-increasing scientific and technological assistance to industry. Both government and industry must now bear in mind the intimate relationship between the establishment of scientific principle and application of that principle, and the order in which these occur. Pure science, in any field, demands an atmosphere of freedom to seek the truth, wherever it leads. Where we lack the knowledge or the insight to see its ultimate ap-plication, if any, then we must have faith. The under- 11 standing will come later. Even those who underrate basic research must acknowledge in pragmatic terms, if they insist on direct application, that basic research does pay off. It always has. We dare not overlook, however, the importance of applying the results of our basic research. The Russians have demonstrated, particularly in weapons technology, great speed and efficiency in telescoping the time interval between discovery and operational use. In the modern world the fastest transition time may carry with it the decisive margin of power. Aside from the important military aspects, the days and years ahead dictate that scientific knowledge and techniques be brought to bear on all our problems. and that this be accomplished without injury to education as a whole or to basic research. One important way to pursue this goal is for the academic scientist, the governmental scientist and the industrial scientist to meet on common ground. Such a meeting ground is the technological institute. The technological institutes must accept this willingly and in doing so must have the full understanding and support of their trus-tees, staff and alumni. All of this is fundamental to the vastly increased understanding which is so necessary if science and technology are to flourish as they must in the interests of our national vigor. And all of this, admittedly, is quite an order. How do you go about it? One part of the answer is in terms of dollars. Uncommitted dollars Government has dollars, but generally wants specific answers to specific problems for its dollars. Industry has dollars, and for its dollars generally asks something of the same. Foundations have dollars, but all the funds available to foundation philanthropy in the United States, however large they may seem, can only serve to point up the needs, to help others seek experimental courses of action, and to challenge still others to share the burden. Yet the very nature of our problems of science and national welfare transcend any immediate need of any potential participant government, industry, alumni or whatever. The easiest money to get is for applied research — where results are often predictable, if not, in fact, specified in advance. This, however, is not general-support money. Yet the ability of institutions to handle applied research rises or falls in direct relation to the soundness of the overall academic structure. The kind of general financial support that I speak of is imperative in building the overall strength of our institutions of learning. This kind of money the so-called free or uncommitted moneyis unfortunately the hardest of all to get. It also is the most important. This free money is free only in the sense that it has no strings attached-no quid pro quo, no C.O.D. tag for specific research, however important or meritorious. But 12 it is part of the cost of society's welfare. It is, if you will, an investment in our own faith in freedom's future. What better purpose awaits our commitment to this faith? There is particular pertinence for this commitment, in the form of vastly increased support to such institutions as Caltech. With greater public awareness and knowledge of the role of science and technology, which you yourselves promote, there will come more enlightened governmental policies at all levels that will make federal and state funds more acceptable in the future than many people think they are today. Science and technology are, as I have said, but a part of the total educational structure with which we must be concerned. In our concern for science we must not lose sight of the essential roles of the liberal arts colleges. From them, again in pragmatic terms, we get most of the men and women who continue on into science. The scientist's responsibility The scientific community and all associated with it have a particular responsibility here to the entire educational enterprise not as scientists or as educators, not as industrialists or as military experts. The responsibility is on each individual as a citizen. Let me make clear: the scientific community does not hold a monopoly on responsibility for shaping the fu-ture; but it does carry a large and inescapable share of that burden. This responsibility includes specifically the right the need-to participate in affairs of the community at large. Saying this, I must also say that as free citizens of a free society, to whose strength their work contributes im-measurably, men of science must accept too the responsibility for any misjudgments they may make. I am speaking at once for the scientist's freedom in the public arena to be as right, or as wrong, as any other free citizen— without damage to his scientific integrity. In matters of science, a scientist is judged by his scientific peers. In all other matters, the scientist will be judged by all men. This goes both ways. It reinforces my plea that an increased public understanding of the true role of science and technology is fundamental. While I have discussed the needs for strengthening science and engineering in the face of a prolonged peril, I must make emphatically clear one additional and significant point: I would hold to these very same arguments even in the absence of such a peril! Realistically, of course, the peril is present. We are in a period of accelerating change and of prolonged threat. We live in a time when the decisions we make, or fail to make, can affect the freedom of men for all time. The torch of the national welfare and national survival are very largely in the hands of science. And science needs the massive support of every intelligent citizen to do its jab. Engineering and Science The Month at Caltech Two new buildings Two of the sixteen buildings which (along with increased faculty salaries) are the goal of Caltech's $16,-100,000 Development Program have now been assured by recent gifts to the Institute. A gift of $350,000 from Gordon A. Alles of Pasadena means that a major addition to the facilities of the Biology Division can now be built. And a gift of $335,-000 from P. G. Winnett of Los Angeles will provide the Institute with the first student activities center it has ever had. Dr. Alles' gift will finance in large part a five-story building that is needed for rapidly expanding research and teaching in virology, biochemistry, biophysies, immunology and psychobiology. The new building, forming a link between the present Kerckhoff and Church laboratories, will be located near the northwest corner May, 1958 Gordon A. Alles of the campus, and will be known as The Gordon A. Alles Laboratory for Molecular Biology. The total cost of the building is estimated at $900,000, of which $391,500 has been pledged by the U.S. Public Health Service. Mr. Winnett's gift will finance a two-story building that will contain offices for student publications, meeting rooms for the student governing body, headquarters for the student YMCA and headquarters for Throop Club. The building will also contain a new campus bookstore, a student shop, a game room and a lounge. The student union will be located near San Pasqual Street, on the site of the present campus coffee shop, and is to be known as The Winnett Center. Detailed plans are now being worked out by a faculty student committee, in consultation with architects, but construction cannot begin for about two years-after new student houses and a new cafeteria have been built. 13 Dr. Gordon A. Alles, chemist and pharmacologist, received his BS (1922), MS (1924), and PhD (1926) degrees from Caltech. His major interest has been in natural and synthetic drug chemicals, with particular regard to the relations between their molecular structures and their biologic actions. He did early research on the isolation and properties of insulin, and has specialized in the study of the "sympathomimetic" drugs. In 1928, he discovered the physiological properties of benzedrine and contributed to its development as a drug. This drug and dexedrine, which was developed from the discovery, have had world-wide medical use as general brain stimulants. Dr. Alles has been a research associate in biology at Caltech since 1939. Since 1931 he has been a lecturer in pharmacology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, and since 1951 he has been Professor in Residence of pharmacology at UCLA. From 1934 to 1951 he was consultant for Smith, Kline & French Laboratories. Mr. Winnett, who has been a member of Caltech's board of trustees since 1939, is a native of Winnipeg, Canada, where he was born in 1881. He went directly from school into merchandising and was one of the founders of Bullock's Inc., in 1906. He was president of the corporation from 1933 to 1950 and has since been chairman of the board. He is president of the Bullock Foundation, the Winnett Foundation and the Santa Anita George W. Beadle, chairman of Caltech's Biology Division and winner of the 1958 Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in the field of science. 14 Charity Foundation. He is a trustee of the Letts Foun- as chairman of the Los Angeles Area War Chest during the war years and later as chairman of the Community Welfare Federation. He was the organizer and first chairman of the Citizens' Transportation Committee which conducted the original survey for the Los Angeles Freeway System. In addition to his gift for the student activities center, Mr. Winnett has also recently given Caltech $75,000 for its expanding program of research in radio astronomy. Einstein Awards George W. Beadle, chairman of Caltech's Biology Division has just received the 1958 Albert Einstein Commemorative Award in the field of science. The award was presented to him at the third annual Einstein Commemorative dinner on May 4 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. These awards, presented by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, were inaugurated on the first anniversary of Einstein's death to lend recognition to outstanding achievement in the fields of Science, Medicine, Citizenship, the Humanities and the Arts. Each award carries a cash prize of $1,000 and a commemorative medallion. Other award winners this year include Selman Waks-man, director of the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University (Medicine); Marion Folsom, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (Citizenship) ; Archibald MacLeish, Boylston Professor at Harvard University (Humanities) ; and Marian Anderson, the singer (Arts). Guggenheim Fellowships Four staff members from Caltech and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships for the coming year: Dr. Robert Finn, associate professor of mathematics; Dr. Yuan Cheng Fung, associate professor of aeronautics; Dr. John Laufer, JPL research specialist; and Dr. Guido Munch, associate professor of astronomy and staff member of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories. Dr. Finn will use the grant to continue his studies of non-linear partial differential equations at the Technical University in Berlin. Starting in November, he will also be a guest lecturer there for six months. A graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he got his PhD from Syracuse University in 1951, and came to Caltech in 1956. Dr Fung, an aerodynamicist, will be investigating the thermodynamics of irreversible processes at Gottingen, Germany, and at Delft University in Holland. After receiving his MS degree from National Central University in Chungking, China, in 1943 he came to Caltech Engineering and Science and received his PhD here in 1948. He joined the staff the same year. Dr. Laufer is interested in measuring characteristics of air turbulence, such as the decay of turbulent shear flow. Though he will travel to many aeronautics laboratories in Italy, his headquarters will be at the Polytechnic Institute of Turin. A mechanical engineering graduate of Louisiana State University, he came to Caltech in 1942, received his MS here in 1943 and his PhD in 1948. He has been at JPL for the past six years. Dr. Munch plans to study the theoretical aspects of the motion of interstellar matter in our galaxy, the Milky Way, at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Got-tingen. Having been interested in theoretical astrophysics and mathematics for several years, his investigations will be concerned with the origin of interstellar gas and its relation to magnetic fields within the galaxy. After receiving his BS in 1938 and MS in 1944 from the Uni-versidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, he came to the United States and got his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1947. He has been a member of the Caltech staff since 1951. NAS member Frank Press, professor of geophysics at Caltech and director of the Institute's Seismological Laboratory has just been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences one of the highest scientific honors in the nation. Election to the Academy is in recognition of outstanding achievement in scientific research, and membership is limited to 500 American citizens and 50 foreign asso-ciates. The election of Dr. Press brings the number of Caltech staff members in the Academy to 31. Frank Press's research contributions cover a wide range of subjects in geology, geophysics and seismology -including microseisms (the continuous ground unrest of the earth's surface) ; the geologic structure of the ocean floor, derived from artificially-produced waves; the behavior of waves in floating Arctic ice sheets; the crustal structure of the earth based on earthquake-wave propa-gation; and the generation of sound waves in the atmosphere by earthquakes. A native of New York City, Frank Press was gradu- ated from the College of the City of New York in 1944. He received his MS in 1946 and his PhD in 1949 from Columbia University, where he taught from 1945 to 1955. In addition to teaching, he was employed on research contracts with the U.S. Navy and Air Force, Nay md xit Do re served on the scientific staff of numerous oceanographic expeditions, and, on a tour of duty for UNESCO, set up a system of seismological stations in Israel. He was an associate professor of geophysics at Columbia and a member of the research staff of the university's Lamont Geological Observatory when he left to come to Caltech in 1955. He has been head of the Seismological Laboratory here since the retirement of Dr. Beno Gutenberg in 1957. May, 1958 Frank Press, Caltech professor of geophysics and director of the Institute's Seismological Laboratory, is a new member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Press is currently a member of the Continental Committee of the International Geophysical Year, which is in charge of overall planning of all IGY research projects on this continent. He is also a member of the IGY's Technical Panel on Glaciology, of the Seismology and Gravity Panel and of the Polar Research Committee. New electrostatic generator The delivery date is about two years away, but Cal-tech's Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy is drawing up plans now to house a big new 100,000,000-volt electrostatic generator. The Office of Naval Research has agreed to supply the $1,000,000 generator itself, but Caltech will have to build a large room, with thick concrete walls and other heavy shielding, in which to house it. The machine will be located in the basement of the proposed Mathematics and Physics building on the cam-pus, adjacent to the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory. This building now houses the High-Voltage Laboratory, but, as part of the Caltech Development Program, the interior will be completely altered to provide quarters for mathematics and physics research. The Institute already has three electrostatic generators housed in the Kellogg Laboratory. They have served to investigate the thermonuclear fusion reaction of light nuclei such as those of hydrogen and helium, which are energy sources in stars. The new 10-mev machine will make it possible to study heavier atomic nuclei and fusion processes. 15 Alumni Seminar Day "The question is if something is built exactly like a mirror reflection- in reverse-will it work the same? That is, are the laws of physics the same when we reflect all the equipment to make a mirror image?" "Say we telephone some being on another planet and tell him how to build a model man. If he is made out of the same gunk as we are, then he builds the model with the heart on the left side-but if he is made of anti-matter, he'll put the heart on the right." A record total of 1185 alumni, wives and guests came to the campus for the 21st annual Alumni Seminar on April 12-almost double the attendance of previous years. Nine lectures on subjects ranging from physics to philosophy were featured on the morning program. (If the audience shown below is any indication, the program was an unqualified success. They're listening to Richard P. Feynman, professor of physics, talk about the non-conservation of parity.) In the afternoon, the visitors had a choice of 18 exhibits and demonstrations (including the last scheduled appearance of the high volts demonstration, the spectacular electrical display that has been one of Caltech's best shows for the past 35 years. H. Rowan Gaither, chairman of the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation, was the main speaker at the evening banquet. His talk, "Science and the National Welfare," is on page 9 of this issue. "Then we find a way to go and visit this guy and get a chance to meet his model man. If this model starts to shake hands with his right hand-go ahead and shake." "But if he holds out his left hand look out. You'll annihilate each other!" The Coldest Spot in the World It's in a vacuum tube in the low-temperature physics laboratory by Jane Werner Watson "The Coldest Spot in the World" has been taken from a forthcoming book, The World of Science, by Jane Walson. The book, which is written for junior high and high school students, tells about current research in all the various fields of science. Most of the research projects described in The World of Science are now going on at Caltech. Even the idea for the book came from Caltech-from Earnest Watson, in fact, dean of the faculty, who felt strongly that younger students needed, and would welcome, a greater understanding of science. Since Mrs. Watson is a skilled writer uf books for young people, The World of Science was he natural result. The World of Science, a Golden. Book by Jane Werner Watson, copyright 1958 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Artists and Writers Press, Inc., will be published in the fall. What is the coldest spot in the world? Near the North Pole? No, in its polar ice pack temperatures go down only to about -81°F. (the record for North America). Siberia's record cold was -90°F. The South Pole? The lowest temperature reported thus far from the South Pole is —89 F. But in a low-temperature physics laboratory in the middle of a well-protected vacuum tube or thermos bottle, the temperature may go down to -459.5°F. or even lower. -459.6°F. is absolute zero. It is the coldest possible temperature. On the special scale used in scientific work, it is O°K. (for Kelvin). The helium in that thermos bottle in the physics laboratory is not at absolute zero. But it is not far from it. It is perhaps 0.01° away. At this temperature even one of the lightest, freest gases in the world has turned—if we 18 could see it inside its silvered container-to a bubbling liquid, then stopped even bubbling and turned smooth as jelly. This is the coldest spot in the world. You know that atoms and molecules are always in motion. In gases they move most freely. For there they are not held together in any shape. In liquids they still slide around easily. And even in a solid-a piece of wood, for example-if you could see the molecules and atoms you would find them vibrating slightly in place. You know that most kinds of matter can be turned from solid to liquid to gas. Let us take iron and water as two examples. Water as a solid is ice; as a liquid it is water; as gas it is water vapor. As ice, it is rather cold; its molecules move slowly. When ice warms up, its molecules move faster; at the melting point they break loose from their solid form and flow like water. As water warms up, its molecules move faster still. At the boiling point they break loose from the liquid form and leap up into the air. They can move fast enough and exert enough force to push the cover up from a pan. So it is with iron. The molecules in solid iron ore are more tightly bound than in ice. Iron must be heated to a much higher temperature than water before it melts, before its molecules get to moving fast enough to break loose from their solid form and flow as a liquid. And liquid iron must be heated very hot indeed specifically, it must be heated to 3032°K.—before it turns to a gas. We see then that heat is connected with the motion of molecules. In fact, the energy in this motion of molecules is heat. When you touch a hot stove, what you feel as heat is partly the result of the rapidly vibrating molecules striking at your finger. Cold is the lessening of that motion. And absolute zero is the point at which, practically speaking, all the Engineering and|Science motion of molecules would cease. There would be practically no energy, no heat, no motion. That is the state our low temperature physicist is trying to approach in his experiments with liquid helium. We have said that it takes a lot of heator energy-to get iron molecules moving fast enough to break loose from their solid state and turn to liquid. This is mostly because the forces of attraction holding the iron molecules in place are very strong. Water melts from its solid state of ice at a much lower temperature because its molecules are not so strongly bound. It takes less heat or energy to get them moving fast enough to break away from the solid state. Air is the gas with which we are most familiar. Its molecules dart around freely as a gas until they are cooled down to about 85°K. or -300°F. At 85°K. or colder, air molecules are so slowed down that they form a liquid. Moreover, this liquid air can be separated into liquid oxygen (1/5) and liquid nitrogen Several uses have been found in industry for liquid oxygen. You know that oxygen is necessary to keep any fire burning. Liquid oxygen is used to speed up the burning of fuel in long-range rockets and jet airplanes. It is also used in the manufacture of steel, to speed up the burning of fuels there. Liquid oxygen has enough industrial uses so that it is John R. Pellam, Caltech professor of physics, is timing the cooling of liquid helium in this dewar. Submerged within the liquid helium is a small glass vial of condensed helium and helium 3, the rare light isotope which will not liquefy until nearly absolute zero temperature. May, 1958 shipped by tank-carloads. And scientists are busy look. ing for new uses for the liquid nitrogen which is left over in the separation. One possible use is a liquid nitrogen bath (at -320°F.) for steel, which can then be rolled to extreme hardness. But there are gases even better than oxygen and nitrogen for low-temperature work. There is hydrogen, which does not slow down into a liquid until 20.38°K. It does not slow down into a solid, or freeze, until it reaches 14.04°K. Unfortunately hydrogen is too explosive for safe industrial use. Then there is helium. Although it is not as light as hydrogen, its molecules need even less heat or energy to keep moving freely as a gas. They do not slow down into a liquid until 4.22 K. In fact, there is a light isotope of helium, He, which does not liquefy until 3.20°K. That is the lowest natural boiling point for any liquid. It is the reason low-temperature physicists use helium when they are trying to get as close as possible to absolute zero. How do you go about cooling helium down almost to absolute zero? You use every method of cooling you can think of. Restaurants and physicists How do restaurants keep certain foods ice-cold while they serve them? They set the dishes containing the foods in bowls of ice. Physicists use this method, too. They may surround the tank of helium gas with liquid nitrogen at about 77°K. to start the cooling process. They also compress the helium into a small space. The work of doing this heats it up, of course, but the heat is absorbed in the packing of liquid nitrogen. When the helium is allowed to expand again, it cools down still Physicists also use already-cooled helium to help them cool more. On the way to the cooling box, the gas is piped through coils of tubing. Coming up through other coils is helium which has already been cooled. The two sets of coils are wrapped together. So the already-cooled helium helps cool the incoming gas. That brings the temperature down some more. Heat is energy, we have said. You know one way to use up energy-doing work. So the physicists make the helium do work. Inside the cooling machine is a small engine. There are two cylinders with pistons in them. The pressure of the helium gas pushes up the pistons. That means the gas is doing work. It is using energy. It loses heat in the process. You know that in a steam engine water is heated until it turns to steam, and the pressure of this steam pushes up the piston in a cylinder. Doing this work cools the steam so that it turns back into water and more fuel has to be burned to heat it to steam again. In the same way, doing the work in this engine cools the helium a bit more. Of course a steam engine has to have lubricating oil to keep the piston from sticking. For years men thought 19 it would be impossible to run an engine with helium or cooled air because it would be working at such low temperatures that any lubricating oil would freeze solid. How could they keep the pistons from sticking? In these engines, a thin film of the gas itself provides the lubrica-tion! Next, some of the helium is allowed to expand through a small nozzle leading into another container. In this expansion, some of the small amount of heat still remaining in the gas is used to separate the atoms. This "work" against the natural force of the atoms' attraction for each other cools the helium so that it turns to liquid. Its temperature is now 4,2°K. Keeping cool What do you use to keep lemonade cool for a picnic? You use a thermos bottle. That is what the physicists use for their liquid helium, too. But what a thermos bottle! Outside are two layers of silvered glass with a vacuum between. Next comes a layer of liquid nitrogen, itself very cold. Again, inside this, is a double layer of glass with another vacuum between the two glass walls. And finally comes the liquid helium. This sounds like real protection. But there are still difficulties. One is that the vacuum must be pumped out repeatedly, because helium can leak even through pyrex glass walls! For the final chilling steps, the liquid helium is pumped through vacuum-protected tubes into a dewar vacuum tube waiting in a special laboratory. Then a sample of a certain material called a para- magnetic salt is suspended inside a tube of rarefied helium gas in the middle of the liquid helium. When all is ready, the physicist swings the tube around to an electromagnet (as shown in the picture at the top of the page), whose two sections roll shut around the tube. The time has come for the last steps down toward absolute zero. The paramagnetic salt has a special quality. When a magnetic field is applied to it-when the big electromagnet is turned on—its molecules line up magnetically like tiny iron filings near a bar magnet. We have said that it was the disorderly motion of molecules, called thermal chaos, which causes heat. Now, this magnetic lining-up of molecules is just the opposite of disorder or chaos. So what it does is force heat out of the salt. The heat flows from the salt into the rarefied helium gas around it. This gas carries the heat out to the sur- rounding liquid helium. Now, to prevent the heat from flowing back in again by the same route, this gas must be pumped out by a vacuum pump. At these extremely low temperatures, atoms move very slowly indeed. So it may take as much as 20 minutes to complete the pumping out. Then the magnetic field is removed. The lined-up salt molecules can turn in all directions again. This move- 20 I'hes powerful electromagnet helps to produce temperatures close to absolute zero. Liquid nitrogen, a cooling agent, is being poured into a dewar which surrounds a container of liquid helium. When the silver dewar is swung into position, the two heavy iron sections of the electromagnet are rolled shut and the cooling procedure begins. ment takes some energy, and therefore uses up some heat, which cools the salt as a whole. Down goes the temperature of the salt in the half second it takes to turn off the current, down to perhaps 0.001°K. By now the glass of the tube is at such low temperature that it does not conduct heat well. So, even if room temperature heat should strike the outside surface, it would have a hard time flowing all the way in. Inside the vacuum protection, it will take seven or eight hours for the precious salts to warm up even to .01'K.- No excitement "Why try to approach absolute zero?" poople used to ask low-temperature physicists. "When you get there, everything will be motionless as death. There will be no excitement." The scientists themselves did not know just what they would find down near OK. But they kept working toward it. And just a few years after they first managed to liquefy helium (which had been done in 1908) they made a surprising discovery which has not lost its excitement in 50 years. This discovery was superconductivity. You know that some substances are better conductors of electricity than others. Wood is no good at all. Among metals, lead is not very good. Tin is fairly good. And copper is very good. Now it was discovered that, at very low temper-atures, certain metals, including lead and tin, become superconductors. This is how the experiment works. The physicist takes a small ring of lead and places it in a container planned Engineering and Science KEITH LYNN, B.S.E.E., PURDUE, '52, INVITES YOU TO "Spend a day with me at work" "I'm an Equipment Engineer for Illinois Bell Telephone Company in Chicago. Speaking personally, I find Bell Telephone engineering darned interesting and very rewarding. But judge for yourself." "8:30 a.m. We start at my desk. I'm studying recommendations for additional dial facilities at the central office in suburban Glenview. This is the beginning of a new engineering assignment for me." "10:20 a.m. I discuss a proposed layout for the additional central olice equipment with Supervising Engineer Sam P. Abate. Since I'll want to see the installation area this afternoon, I order a car." "11:00 a.m. At an interdepartmental conference I help plan procedures for another job I'm working on. Working with other departments broadens your experience and know-how tremendously." "2:00 p.m. After lunch I drive out to the Glenview office. Here, in the frame room, I'm checking floor space required by the proposed equipment. The way our busi- ness is growing, every square foot counts." "3:70 p.m. Then I drive to the office at nearby Skokie where a recent assignment of mine is in its final stages. Here I'm suggesting a modification to the Western Electric installation foreman." "3:30 p.m. Before starting back to Chi-cago, I examine a piece of Out Sender equipment being removed from the Skokie office. This unit might fit in just fine at another office. I'll look into it." "Well, that was today. Tomorrow will be different. As you can see, I take a job from the beginning and follow it through. Often I have a lot of jobs in various stages at the same time. I think most engineers would agree, that keeps work interesting." Keith Lynn is one of many young engineers who are finding rewarding careers in the Bell Telephone Companies. Find out about opportunities for you. Talk with the Bell interviewer when he visits your campus. And read the Bell Telephone booklet on file in your Placement Office. May, 1958 BELL TELEPHONE COMPANIES 21 In this experiment a small magnet is dropped into a container filled with liquid helium. As long as the temperature is kept below 7.2° K., the magnet will float instead of dropping to the bottom. The magnet can hardly be seen in this picture because, at 3° K., the helium is still boiling violently. for liquid helium. Around the thermos bottle he places a coil of wire through which a steady d-c electric current is set running. The starting up of this current sets up a temporary current in the lead ring. But it almost immediately dies out, because of resistance in the lead. Now liquid helium is poured into the container, around the lead. The lead cools to an extremely low temperature, of course. As it falls below 7.2°K., the lead becomes a superconductor. Again, changing the current in the coil outside induces a current in the lead ring as before. But with a difference. Now the current in the outer coil of wire can be turned off. But the current thus induced in the lead ring will run on and on, presumably forever, as long as the lead is kept so extremely cold. For there is no resistance to electricity in the lead to slow down and stop the current, so close to absolute zero. The physicist holds up a compass close to the thermos bottle or vacuum tube. And the magnetic field set up by that current in the lead ring is strong enough to attract the compass needle! Next he lowers a small lead plate to the bottom of another container of liquid helium. Then he lets down a small magnet into the helium. You would expect it to fall to the bottom too. But it does not. What happens? The magnet sets up a mirror image of itself in the lead plate. Since like poles of a magnet repel each other, the mirror image repels the magnet. And just enough electric current is generated in the lead plate to balance the power of the magnet and hold it suspended above the lead. It would remain thus suspend. ed forever if the temperature could be kept permanently below 7.2°K. 22 In this phase of the experiment the liquid helium has been cooled to just a couple of degrees above absolute zero. The boiling has ceased and the liquid is smooth as jelly—in fact, it is the most quiescent substance known. The floating magnet can now be plainly seen through the clear windows in the silvered sides of the dewar. Why is this "mirror image" set up? Why is there no resistance to electricity at these very low temperatures? Why does the current seem to run on forever like a perpetual motion machine? These are questions no one has been able to answer in 50 years. Perhaps the answer is hidden in the perpetual motion within atoms. For electrons, you know, whirl forever around their nuclei with no loss of energy. You may be the one to find the answers to these and other questions in electricity and magnetism, if you make low-temperature physics your field. A more recent surprise in low-temperature physics is what happens to helium itself. At 4.2°K. it settles into a liquid, boiling with small, lively bubbles. The vapor which keeps forming at the top is drawn off through a vacuum line. And the temperature keeps going down. At 2.19°K. the boiling stops. The liquid is smooth as jelly, as you can see through the small clear windows in the silvered sides of the Dewar jar. Has the helium frozen into a solid state comparable to ice? No. There is a solid state of helium, but it has so far been reached only under a combination of low temperature and very high pressure. It is still liquid, but some of it has a new form. It is called a superfluid. And it has been given the name helium II. Why is it called a superfluid? Because it can do things other liquids or fluids cannot do. Most liquids do not flow perfectly freely. There is a certain amount of re-sistance, or friction, which we call viscosity. But helium Il flows with perfect ease through the tiniest openings. continued on page 26 Engineering and|Science The ORGANIZATION and RETRIEVAL of INFORMATION The organization and retrieval of large volumes of diverse types of information is rapidly becoming one of today's more serious problems. Major areas where the problem exists include business and industry, the military, the government, and the scientific and engineering community itself. In its simpler forms, the problem may involve, for example, the automatic handling and analysis of business data such as payrolls, sales and manufacturing figures, insurance premiums, and other essentially statistical data. At the other extreme are certain complex military situations which require the concurrent inter-pretation, analysis, and integration on a very short time scale of data from a wide variety of sources, including field reports, photographs, news reports, estimates of industrial activity, and the like. In many of these situa-tions, there is the additional requirement to translate the information from a foreign language into English. The development in recent years of electronic data handling equipment is now making possible the practical solution of many of these problems. Such equipment has the capability to perform arishme operations, make decisions among alternatives, and retrieve large quantities of information, and at high speed automatically perform long, complex sequences of operations. At Ramo-Wooldridge, work is in progress on advanced information handling systems that are characterized by large volume and widely different forms of infor- ments for new equipment. Research is also under way on the machine translation of foreign languages into English. Engineers and scientists with experience in the follow. ing fields are invited to explore the wide range of openings now available: Systems Engineering EDP Systems Computer Programming Console Design Display Development High Acuity Optics Photo Interpretation The Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation 5730 ARBOR VITAE STREET • LOS ANGELES 45, CALIFORNIA May, 1958 23 U.S. RAILROADS 24 Where Engineers Can Move Ahead Faster America's Railroads offer young engineers a particularly fast track to an interesting and challenging future. The reasons are clear. Our railroads are putting through an enormous program of automation and modernization. They are vital to America's economy and defense. And their need for you is very great. Their present management teams are looking forward to future successors. Retirement rates are currently high; and replacements are brought up from within. If you'd like to consider the unusual opportunities and rewards open to engineers of all types in railroading, see your placement officer or write us at 30 Church Street, New York 7, N. Y. We know you will like working with America's railroads. We've been doing it ourselves for many years-in supplying this great industry with Kerite quality insulated wire and cable. KERITE CABLE ts the KerItE that makes the difference 819719 TURRETE BiD 歴EM鱼2风 Engineering and|Science Д rewarding Chemistry stands at the threshold of a new age of discovery It has been said that more significant scientific advances have taken place in the last fifty years than in all the centuries that have gone before. One fact is indisputably clear. The use of applied science in American industry today is progressing at a rate so fantastic it staggers the imagination of the boldest visionary! This is particularly evident in the vast, highly diversified field of industrial chemistry. Here, products, materials and processes that were unknown a few years ago are in wholesale use today. The accomplishments of chemical research are being felt in every area of human endeavor. The prospect of further advancement in the immediate future appears limited only by man's imagination and his desire for improvement. Our society stands at the threshold of a new age of discovery that offers an infinitely better way of life as its reward. A host of courageous, creative industrial chemists will help lead the way. ... and you, too, can help shape the future See for yourself. This interesting, informative booklet, "Op-portunities for College Trained People with The Dow Chemical Company" can help you make an all-important decision about your future. Write our Director of College Relations for the booklet and the date a Dow representative will visit your campus. THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY, MIDLAND, MICH. DOW May, 1958 25 Coldest Spot in the World ... continued Water seeks its own level within one container. But helium II does more. If you lower an empty tube into helium II, the helium will creep up the sides of the tube and fill it to the level of the liquid outside. Lift the tube containing some helium II and hold it above the level of the rest of the helium II, and the liquid in the tube climbs out and down to join the rest. Perhaps strangest of all, there is the mysterious phenomenon called "second sound." Helium Il is a perfect conductor of heat. We would scarcely be inclined to think of heat at a temperature equal to -459°F. But there is a very small amount of heat or motion of molecules left in the liquid helium. If a very small bit of additional heat is applied, we can observe its movements through the superfluid. And a strange sort of movement it is! In most materials-from air to a rod of gold-heat moves slowly, spreading out gradually by what we call diffusion. But in helium II heat travels in sharp little pulses, very much like sound waves. In fact, this method of heat movement is called "second sound." Back in the nineteenth century, when scientists were just finding out about sound waves, it was discovered that these waves could turn aside a hanging disk of metal called a Rayleigh Disc. When low-temperature physicists started finding out about "second sound" in helium II, one of them recalled this old-time experiment and dangled a tiny Rayleigh Disc in liquid helium. Sure enough, it turned as the "second sound" waves of heat struck it. Of course these waves of "second sound" cannot be heard. They cannot be picked up with microphones. Since they are really temperature waves, special receivers have had to be made to receive them. These are tiny plates of carbon with a small constant current of electricity flowing through them. The colder they are, the less well they conduct electricity. The warmer they are, the better. One of these receivers is placed in the liquid helium. The current changes ever so slightly each time a "heat wave" strikes it and warms it a bit. And these changes in voltage can be amplified enough for a physicist to record. These experiments with "second sound." or thermal waves, are very delicate. As we have seen, it is a slow and difficult process to make the liquid helium needed just to start the experiments. And what will they prove? What use can be made of the knowledge? There is a saying among scientists to answer questions like this. "What good is a new-born baby?" they ask. In other words, "Give us time. Who can say what our experiments may lead to? Only time and testing will tell." EDISON NEEDS ENGINEERS 26 CIVIL ELECTRICAL MECHANICAL SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON COMPANY, the fastest-growing electric utility company in the United States, serves one of the fastest-growing areas of the nation. To cope with the constantly increasing demand for power, Edison now has in operation its first atomic electric generating plant. This is the first installation of its kind in the west to produce electricity for commercial use by atomic energy. Because of Edison's growth and its policies of leadership in technological fields and promoting from within, the opportunities for advancement with the company are at an unprecedented high. Edison's employee benefits include a medical and sick leave plan plus outstanding retirement, vacation and insurance plans. For all the details please write or call: Mr. C. T. Malloy, Southern California Edison Company, P. O. Box 351 - MIchigan 7111, Los Angeles 53, California. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Edison COMPANY LIVE BETTER-ELECTRICALLY Engineering and Science STRAIGHT TALK TO ENGINEERS from Donald W. Douglas, Jr. President, Douglas Aircraft Co., Inc. Here at Douglas we're involved in a greatly accelerated missile and space program. This requires one of the most intensive engineering and research efforts in our history. The problems are great ones as we move into the new dimension of unmanned and manned space vehicles. They require specialists in almost every engineering field. But their solution will May, 1958 result in great benefits not onlyto our own nation but to all mankind. If you're interested in tackling these problems with us. in giving your best in an all-out drive to solve them... we're interested in you! Please write to Mr. C. C. La Vene Douglas Aircraft Company, Box 6101-F Santa Monica, California 27 Personals 1922 Howard G. Vesper has just been elected president of the Standard Oil Company of California, Western Operations, Inc. For the past several years, he has been a vice president and director, with marketing as his primary responsibility. The company is the largest operating subsidiary. of the Standard Oil Company of California and includes all of the company's activities in the seven western states, Alaska, and the Pacific Islands. 1924 Earl S. Hayman, owner of the Earl S. Hayman Company in Glendale, died of pneumonia on March 20. Earl worked in sound engineering for 18 years at Paramount Pictures and during the war he owned and operated an aircraft accessory firm while still with Paramount. He established his own office in real estate and insurance in 1945. 1926 Allen L. Laws writes that he's still division manager for the Southern California Edison Company in Los Angeles. Last year he was appointed a trustee of the San Marino City Library, and he is on the executive committee of the San Marino Community Council. 1927 W. Layton Stanton, PhD '31, has been transferred to Denver, Colorado, to serve as manager of the Rocky Mountain Di- vision of the Union Oil Company. He had been working as a geological coordinator for the company's Canada & Rocky Mountain Division in Los Angeles. 1932 John A. Leermakers, PhD, assistant director of the Kodak Research Laboratories in New York, was the main speaker at the Tenth Annual Management Conference of the Cornell University Graduate School of Business and Public Administration Ithaca, N.Y., last month. 1933 Robert L. Suggs, MS, writes (from New Orleans) that he is now president of four companies - Petroleum Helicopters, tina flore Navigation, Inc; Into: shore Raydist, Inc. Maurice F. Hasler, PhD, president and director of research of the Applied Research Laboratories in Glendale, California, received the $1,000 Beckman Award in chemical instrumentation at the 133rd national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco last month. The prize, sponsored by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in Fullerton, was awarded to Maurice for his leadership in the introduction of devices to investigate compounds by specific measurements of such properties as light intensity, radiant energy and color. Gregory K. Hartmann, technical director of the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory at Silver Spring, Md., received the Defense Department's Distinguished Civilian Service Award from Defense Secretary McElroy last month. The award was given for his leadership as a scientist-executive. He has guided the work of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory since 1955, after serving four years as associate director for research Although most of the work of the Labor. atory cannot be made known because of security restrictions, one of the recent accomplishments under Gregory's direction continued on page 30 FOR RENT For Small Laboratories Approx, 1000 Sq. Ft. $ 80 per month Approx. 1060 Sq. Ft. 85 per month Approx. 1150 Sq. Ft. 90 per month Approx. 1450 Sq. Ft. 125 per month Connecting areas may be combined PERFECT VISION for commercial fluorescent applications when you think of lighting think of SMOOT-HOLMAN PERFECT VISION Luminaires combine attractive styling with even light distribution and high efficiency... easier hanging and lamping. Insist on the genuine, original PERFECT VISION Luminaire. Be sure it carries the SMOOT-HOLMAN label! Write for brochure with performance data SMOOT-HOLMAN COMPANY, Inglewood, California 28 CENTRAL LOCATION Between California Institute of Technology and Glendale-Burbank Manufacturing areas Financing available Parking Property location 2769-2777 West Broadway, Eagle Rock Owner Citrus 1-6342 Engineering and Science YOUR ENGINEERING CAREER with INGERSOLL-RAND also means LEADERSHIP in Seven electric-driven Ingersoll-Rand reciprocating compressors totaling 21,900 horsepower are at work in this large ammonia synthesis plant. The units in the foreground compress mixed gases to more than 12,000 pounds per square inch. Centrifugal Pumps Here's What Compressor Engineering at Ingersoll-Rand can mean to you... Joday, air power is one of the industry's most vital requirements. Compressed ai and gases are the "breath of life" to chemical and process industries, refineries, power plants, steel mills, manufacturing plants, mines and all types of construction jobs. Hence, compressor and blower engineering offers an exciting and ever-expanding field of challenging opportunities that are virtually industry-wide. Ingersoll-Rand is the world's largest man- ufacturer of air and gas compressors and Turbo-Blowers - supplying over 1000 different sizes and types, ranging from ½ hp to 17,250 hp, in pressures from vacuum to 35,000 psi. Ingersoll-Rand also manufactures pumps, rock drills, diesel and gas engines, vacuum equipment, blowers, air and electric tools and specialized industrial machinery as illustrated at the right. These products require engineering know-how in their design, manufacture and field application. If you are looking for a leadership career with long-range job security and excellent opportunities for advancement, you'll find it at Ingersoll-Rand. For further details, contact your Placement Office, or write to Ingersoll-Rand, 11 Broadway, New York 4. OPPORTUNITIES for ENGINEERS NOW AVAILABLE: • Sales Engineering • Production Engineering • Design Engineering • Business Engineering Ingersoll-Rand 11 Broadway, New York 4, N. Y. Rock Drills Air & Electric Tools Steam Condensers Diesel & Gas Engines May, 1958 29 MARS outstanding 1+0+000000+000 design SERIES 21st century city The shallow, plastic-faced, Geodesic dome makes this city of the future look strange to zoth century eyes. But designer Philip H. Seligson has combined practical economics with creative thinking in committing his concept to paper. Industries are located at the outer circumference of the city; discharge their smoke through stacks that pierce the dome. Central air conditioning controls the temperature -winter or summer the climate is perfect. Instead of building their own four weather walls and roof, insulating them, heating and cooling them, people can build their walls merely as grilles and curtains. No matter which of today's ideas become reality, it will be as important tomorrow as it is today to use the best of tools when pencil and paper translate a dream into a project. And then, as now, there will be no finer tool than Mars-from sketch to working Mars has long been the standard of professionals. To the famous line of Mars-Technico push-button holders and leads, Mars-Lumograph pencils, and Tra-dition-Aquarell painting pencils, have recently been added these new products: the Mars Pocket-Technico for field use; the efficient Mars lead sharpener and "Draftsman's" Pencil Sharpener with the adjustable point-length feature; and-last but not least-the Mars-Lumochrom, the new colored drafting pencil which offers revolutionary drafting advantages. The fact that it blueprints perfectly is just one of its many important features. ¡The 2886 Mars-Lumograph drawing pencil, 19 degrees, EXEXB to 9H. The 1001 Mars-Technico push-button lead holder. 1904 Mars-Lumograph imported leads, 18 degrees, EXB to 9H. Mars-lumochrom colored drafting pencil, 24 colors. MARS LIMOCHROM DOC GERMANY 9886 1001 （SLSSTAEDTLFB D6 2618 2H J.S. TAEDTLER, INC. HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY: at all good engineering and drawing material suppliers 30 Personals... continued marines. The NOL also has a large and vital part in the current POLARIS project -the intermediate-range missile with nuclear capability that U.S. atomic-powered submarines will soon be able to launch while lying submerged off enemy shores. The Hartmanns live in Garret Park, Md., with their four children. 1937 Martin H. Webster, who has his own law practice in Los Angeles, has just been appointed chairman of the tax committee of the Los Angeles Bar Association. Mar- tin, who specializes in tax and business law, writes: "I can make no promise of tax reductions as a result of this post, but you can be sure that I, and the 45 tax attorneys who serve on the committee with me, will work very hard for tax reforms." Martin and his wife live in Brentwood and have two children-Felicea, 9, and Larry, 7. 1940 Warren H. Vetter is now chief engineer of the Southwest Welding and Mfg. Company in Alhambra, California. Miller Quarles, Jr., '41, writes that he (with his wife and three daughters) changed his address from San Antonio, Texas, to Paris, France, last month. He is now a consulting geophysicist for the re-cently-formed international firm of Com-panie Reynolds de Geophysique. "My wife awaited 20 years for this chance to use the five years of French she took at Occident-al," Miller says, "and she thinks it took a long time for me to show that she could marry a geologist and see the world." 1942 Boyd T. Marshall, MS '43, writes that "after living in Pasadena since graduation, I moved the family to Arcadia about two years ago. We now have a family of three girls and one boy-ages four to twelve. Last year I was elected vice president of the Waste King Corporation in L.A." 1943 Earle R. Atkins, Jr., is now a section leader at the Union Oil Company's Research Center in Brea, California. 1944 William T. Collings, MS '47, has announced the formation of a consulting engineering firm in Milwaukee. The new firm's name is Collings-Vranich and Asso-ciates. Bill was formerly with the engi- neering firm of Klug and Smith in Mil-waukee. Fred Behrens writes a short note on events as far back as 1946. "Since then, I have acquired a wife and three sons-Jim, John and David. We've just expanded, modernized and redecorated our home in Arcadia. "I left Pillsbury Mills, Inc., after nine continued on page 34 Engineering and Science Ingineers ocienses • matreranciars.. TWO IMPORTANT REASONS FOR STARTING YOUR CAREER WITH LOCKHEED MISSILE SYSTEMS • Better Advancement Opportunities • Higher Degree Educational Program As greater emphasis is put on missile's role in U.S. defense, our own missile projects will continue to expand. This growth potential - coupled with our youth as a division - means better opportunities for you to move rapidly ahead in a career with Lockheed Missile Systems. Under the Advanced Study Program, the Lockheed Graduate Study Council offers qualified students the oportunity to earn advanced degrees while employed in their chosen fields at Lockheed Missile Systems. Eligible students must be U.S. citizens holding B.S. or M.S. degrees in engineering, mathematics, or science applicable to missile systems research and development. Extensive laboratory facilities at Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, near Stanford University, provide an atmosphere to satisfy the most inquisitive scientific mind, yet pique the desire for further knowledge and achievement. Both locations are less than an hour's drive from San Francisco. For further information, contact your Placement Officer, or write College Relations Office, Lockheed Missile Systems, 3251 Hanover St., Palo Alto, Calif. Lockheed MISSILE SYSTEMS A DIVISION OF LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION SUNNYVALE • PALO ALTO • VAN NUYS • SANTA CRUZ • CALIFORNIA Advanced Study Program physics student J. T. Naff charges up the condenser of a high velocity shock tube preparatory to firing. Naff, a graduate of Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, is working on his Master's Degree at the University of California, while employed at Lockheed's Palo Alto Research and Development Laboratory. CRESCENT HYVOLT SHIELDED POWER CABLE CONDUCTORS HYVOLT INSULATION CONDUCTOR SHIELDING TAPE METAL SHIELDING TAPE SEMI-CONDUCTING TAPE RUBBER-FILLED TAPE NEOPRENE SHEATH FOR MORE AMPERES PER DOLLAR OF INSTALLED COST CRESCENT HYVOLT insulation is made from butyl rubber which is inherently resistant to ozone, heat, moisture and aging with excellent electrical characteristics. For 5000 Volt or higher service, HYVOLT cables are provided with shielding to protect them from surface burning, corona, and lightning surges. CRESCENT INSULATED WIRE & CABLE CO. TRENTON, N. J. OVER 70 YEARS EXPERIENCE ANNUAL ALUMNI PICNIC Saturday, June 28, 1958-Knott's Berry Farm The date set for the Annual Alumni Picnic is Saturday, June 28, 1958 and it will be held this year at Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, California. Come and bring the children-and your friends and their children! Common meeting place "The Arena" in Ghost Town. Box lunches complete with beverage can be purchased and eaten in "The Arena." Bring your own lunch and eat in "The Arena." Ample seating in the shade available. Announcements, with details, will be in the mails early in June. SAVE THIS DATE Charles F. Forester, '49 Chairman, Picnic Committee ANNUAL ALUMNI BANQUET Wednesday, June 11, 1958 Rodger Young Auditorium The Caltech Alumni Association will hold its annual dinner and meeting on Wednesday, June 11, 1958 at the Rodger Young Audi-torium, 936 West Washington Blvd., Los An-geles, California. Dr. Simon Ramo, '36, President of Space Unit Division, Ramo-Wooldridge Corpora-tion, will be the principal speaker and his subject ("Space and Electronics--Which Will Dominate the Century?") is timely. Dr. Lee A. DuBridge will give his annual report to the alumni on Institute affairs. The reunion of Classes of 1903, 1913, 1918 (April and September), 1923, 1928, 1933, 1938, 1943, 1948, and 1953 will be held on the same evening. All alumni are cordially invited to attend. Please get your reservation into the Alumni Office by June 6th. Barton B. Beek, '44 Chairman, Banquet Committee 32 Engineering land|Science The Challenge of Progress Recently AiResearch engineers were called upon to develop an accessory power motor for aircraft and missiles which would operate at +1000°F.... a temperature area where present-day hydraulic and electrical devices fail. Their answer was this cam piston air motor, pictured above in a specially built transparent shell. Operating on hot air or gas, its efficiency actually increases as temperatures rise. This problem and its solution are typical of many encountered at orientation program is available to AiResearch in aircraft, missile, aid you in selecting your field of nuclear and electronic fields. Specif- interest. This permits you to survey ically, you'll find them in system the project, laboratory and adminis- electronics; computers and flight trative aspects of engineering at instruments; gas turbine engines and Garrett. Also, with company finan- turbine motors; cryogenic and cial assistance, you can continue nuclear systems; pneumatic valves; your education at outstanding uni- servo control units and air motors; versities located nearby. industrial turbochargers; air condi- Project work is conducted by small tioning and pressurization; and heat groups where individual effort is transfer. more quickly recognized and oppor- Upon your employment, in addi-tunities for learning and advance- tion to direct assignments, a 9-month ment are enhanced. • For full information rite to Mr. G. D. Bradley. THE GARRETT CORPORATION 9851 5. SEPULVEDA BLVD.. LOS ANGELES 45, CALIFORNIA DIVISIONS: AIRESEARCH MANUFACTURING. LOS ANGELES • AIRESEARCH MANUFACTURING, PHOENIX • AIRSUPPLY AIRESEARCH INDUSTRIAL • REX • AERO ENGINEERING • AIR CRUISERS • AIRESEARCH AVIATION SERVICE May, 1958 33 Personals. .. continued years as southern California plant engineer, to work for a consulting firm and technicolor corporation in Hollywood on machine design for 18 months. Now I'm project engineer in charge of machinery research and development at the United Concrete Pipe Corporation in Baldwin Park. My outside activities include being president of the Men's Club of the American Lutheran Church of Arcadia." 1945 James B. Green, formerly midwest dis- trict manager for the Jeffrey Mfg. Com-pany, is now manager of the Fort Worth (Texas) Steel and Machinery Company's engineering sales division. The Greens have four children—a daughter and three sons. 1946 Carl Richardson, MS, works as a materials coordinator at C. F. Braun & Com- pany in Alhambra. He has two daughters, Emogene and Kay. Ali Bulent Cambel, MS, chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and head of the gas dynamics program at Northwestern University, is co-author of a new textbook, Gas Dynamics, published by the McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1948 James Wendel, PhD, writes from Ann Arbor: "I've been associate professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan since the fall of 1955—and we have five children now. Donald A. Darling, Phb'57, and Jack E. McLaughlin, PhD '50, are both here, too." dren-Ronnie, Patty and Barbara. John K. fee is now director, secretar und assistant chief engineer for James M Montgomery, consulting engineer—a Pasadena corporation specializing in hy- draulics, water supply, water treatment, writes that he moved to New Orleans from Roswell, New Mexico, two years ago. He is assistant division geologist with the Continental Oil Company. The Hegglands have a six-year-old daughter, Sherry. William C. A. Woods is now a nuclear engineer with the Ralph M. Parsons Company in Los Angeles and is living in Mon-rovia. Until last summer, Bill worked for the AEC in Washington. Burton B. Rutkin MS '50, is now working as an engineer at the Shell Development Company's Emeryville, California, Research Center. William E. Eilau is a project engineer for the Sandberg-Serrell Corporation in Pasadena. Currently in charge of the design of a hypersonie wind tunnel for one of the local aircraft companies, Bill has with Sandberg-Serrell for the past five years. The Eilaus have three chil Accurate Slide Rule Tie Bar ... Here is a new and different idea designed by an engineering professor to work simple problems. Completely masculine and conservative, it is a perfect gift for the engineer. This unique conversational item is also available in quantity lots to industrial firms, with monogram if desired. For special quantity prices, write Uniquest at the address below. For individual orders use the convenient order blank, enclosing $2.75 for each tie bar ordered. Your slide rule tie bar will come neatly boxed, and complete satisfaction is guaranteed. UNIQUEST 5130 E. 45th St. Tulsa, Oklahoma Please send. Slide Rule Tie Bars to: Name... Street.. City & State... Enclosed find my check or M.O. for $ 34 Neal Huntley, returning to Procter & Gamble from the Army last July, we have bought a home in Anaheim and now have a baby son, Christopher Neal. I am a chemical engineer for synthetic products at P&G's Long Beach plant. Other recent graduates here are Dick Hodges, '54, Bill Chambers, '55, Arne Kalm, '56, and, in June, Don Stock- '58 and Larry Berry, '58, will join us. Phil Conley, '56, just left for two years at the Army Chemical Center, and Terry '53, MS '56, has been transferred to the Kansas City plant." Quayton R. Stottlemyer, working in the research division of Du Pont's photo products department at the Parlin, New Jersey, laboratory. He re- ceived his PhD in physical chemistry from Penn State this year. Mark Cher received his PhD from Har- vard University last month. Charlton Dunn, III, is working with the applied mechanics group at the Rocket-dyne division at North American Aviation in Los Alamos. 1955 Oreste W. Lombardi is now chief chem- ist for the Columbia Southern Chemical Corporation in Bartlett, California. Alfred M. Goldman, MS '56, writes that he was released from active duty at the Air Research and Development Command headquarters in Baltimore last December and is now an aeronautical engineer in the aerodynamics department of the Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City. Robert L. Metzenberg, Jr., PhD, research associate in physiological chemistry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, has been appointed a Scholar in Medical Science by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation of New York. Bob is one of 25 appointees who will share in $750,000 which has been appropriated toward their support to the schools where they will teach and do research. Thomas H. Bergeman received his Master of Arts degree from Harvard University last month. 1957 Michael Bleicher is studying for his MS at Tulare University, and also teaching freshman calculus. The Bleichers are enjoying New Orleans-finding it "a fas- cinating, cosmopolitan and very rainy city." Engineering and Science Tear out this page for YOUR STEEL NOTEBOOK... The hole that couldn't be made will be 20 miles long HE Philadelphia Electric I Company set out to build a revolutionary new power plant that would squeeze more energy out of fuel than ever before. This meant harnessing the highest combination of pressure and steam temperature ever achieved in a central station 5,000 psi. and 1,200° F. The boiler superheater tubes that carry this steel will glow red hot 24 hours a day, year in, year out. If made from the alloy steels customarily used, the tube walls would have to be so thick that no mill could pierce it. So thick that heat transfer losses would be ruinous to boiler efficiency. A super alloy steel was needed, but no one had ever succeeded in piercing such steel into tubes without developing internal flaws. Combustion Engineering Co., designers and builders of the boiler, gave the problem to Timken Company metallurgists. The problem was to make the steel with all the alloys in just the right balance to produce piercing quality steel. Thru metallurgical research, they achieved the proper balance of alloy elements that made it possible to pierce 20 miles of seamless superheater tubes of the size shown above. It's another example of how Timken Company metallurgists solve tough steel problems. WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STEEL OR JOB OPPORTUNITIES? For information about fine steel, send for "The Story of Timken Alloy Steel Quality". And for help in planning your future, write for "BETTER-ness and Your Career at the Timken Company". Just drop a card to The Timken Roller Bearing Com-pany, Canton 6, Ohio. •TIMKEN STEEL SPECIALISTS IN FINE ALLOY STEELS, GRAPHITIC TOOL STEELS AND SEAMLESS STEEL TUBING May, 1958 35 CALTECH CALENDAR TENNIS May 17 UC, Riverside at Riverside May 23 Conference Tournament at Pomona-Claremont May 24 Conference Tournament at Pomona-Claremont Athletic Schedule BASEBALL May 17 Occidental at Caltech GOLF May 16 Occidental at Caltech May 23 All-Conference Tournament at Los Serranos Alumni Events June 11 Annual Meeting Rodger Young Auditorium June 28 Annual Picnic Knott's Berry Farm San Francisco Chapter June 7 Family Picnic Lake Temescal Park, Oakland Friday Evening Demonstration Lectures LECTURE HALL 201 BRIDGE, 7:30 P.M. May 16 diation and Its Effect on i eredity of Animals by Dr. Edward Lewis May 23 The Use of Multipurpose Food t Ameliorate Protein Malnutrition i Asio— by Dr. Henry Borsook SIT BACK AND BELAX Let Calmec Manufacturing Company Worry About Your Metal Parts and Products We have the most modern facilities and most complete plant to give you the maximum of service, whether it is a small part, a large part, or a product from your ideas to the shipped article direct to your customers, under your name, from our plant. CALMEC MANUFACTURING CO. Robert A. McIntyre, M.S. '38 KImball 6204 5825 District Blvd. Los Angeles 22, Calif. 36 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS PRESIDENT Willis R. Donahue, '34 Donald S. CarE, 29 VICE-PRESIDENT TREASURER Edward P. Fleischer, '43 George B. Holmes, '38 eSter F. Fledsay, a5 Tohn E. Osborn Nick T. Ugrin, '34 ALUMNI CHAPTER OFFICERS NEW YORK CHAPTER Be rond: Mon, Paro & Taylor ank F. Sohok, 48 So Ewards & Sons, 485 Lexington Avenue, Now Folland, 36 WASHINGTON, D.C. CHAPTER Prosed Forces Special Weapons Project Frank H. Shelton, '49 fre Syre Naporatory, Johna Hopkin are 0, King, 49 SAN FRANCISCO CHAPTER residen Donald E. Loeffler, '40 Shell Oil Company, Martine Vice-President Jules F. Mayer, 40 Chemical Division, Standard Oil Co., Richmond Secretary-Treasurer Norman Bulman, '52 CHICAGO CHAPTER President Laurence H. Nobles, '4 Department of Geology, Northwestern University, Evansto Vice President Philip E. Smith, '39 1518 Washington Avenue, Wilmette Ses taary Treasure, Northield Thorne J. Butler, '51 SACRAMENTO CHAPTER President Charles M. Herd, '30 State Division of Architecture, 1120 "N' St. Viate Dividon of Highways, 1120 "N" St. Kenneth M. Fenwick, '28 Secretary-Treasurer Joseph A. Dobrowolski, '49 Portland Cement Association St., Sacrament SAN DIEGO CHAPTER Chairma Maurice B. Ross, '24 3040 Udal Street, San Diego 6, Calif. Sonstidated Vultee Aircraft Corp., San Diego Frank John Dore, Jr., '45 US. Navy ictronies Laboratory Herman S. Englander, '39 Engineering|and|Science PHOTOGRAPHY AT WORK No. 33 in a Kodak Series The Army's first operational rotor-tip propelled jet helicopter -built by Hiller. The camera has caught the fuel spray pattern within the rear end of the ramjet engine even though passing by at about 450 miles per hour. Project: Inspect rotor tip jets for a whirlybird Hiller Helicopters wanted facts on the fuel spray pattern of a ram-jet engine whirling at speeds up to 700 feet per second. Photography got the job. THEN HILLER HELICOPTERS of Palo Alto, Cal. W-a pioneer in vertical take-off aircraft— developed a rotor-tip ram-jet engine, they knew the fuel spray would be subject to high air velocity and centrifugal force up to 1200 G's. Would the fuel spray be deflected outward and cause the jet to lose thrust? They wanted to know. So they set up the camera with its fast eye to catch what otherwise couldn't be seen. And they learned the right angle of air intake and nozzle to obtain the greatest power. Using photography in research is an old story with Hiller-just as familiar as using it for improving public relations. It's an example of the way photography plays many important roles in modern-day industry. In whatever work you do you will find that photography will play a part in improving prod-ucts, aiding quality control and increasing sales. LIGHT SOURCE. PHOTO ELECTRIC CEL SPARK-GAP ALIGHT CAMERA LIGHT SOURCE FOR Is PHOTOELECTRIC PATH OF RAM JET ENGINE SECOND PHOTOELECTRIC CELL TRIPPING LIGHT WHIRLSTAND 1s PHOTOELECTRIC CELL TRIPS SHUTTER POWER SOURE This is all the human eye could have seen of the whirling ram-jet engine as camera takes its picture. CAREERS WITH KODAK With photography and photographic processes If you are looking for such an interesting oppor- becoming increasingly important in the business tunity, write for information about careers with and industry of tomorrow, there are new and Kodak. Address: Business and Technical challenging opportunities at Kodak in research, Personnel Dept., Eastman Kodak Company, engineering, electronics, design and production. Rochester 4, N. Y. EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, Rochester 4, N. Y. Kodak SODE LERE One of a series* Interview with General Electric's W. Scott Hill Manager -Engineering Recruiting Qualities I Look For When Recruiting Engineers Q. Mr. Hill, what can I do to get the most out of my job interviews? A. You know, we have the same question. I would recommend that you have some information on what the company does and why you believe you have a contribution to make. Looking over company information in your placement office is helpful. Have in mind some of the things you would like to ask and try to anticipate questions that may refer to your specific interests. Q. What information do you try to get A. This is where we must fill in be- forms. I try to find out why particular study programs have been fol-lowed, in order to learn basic motiva-tions. I also try to find particular abilities in fields of science, or math-ematics, or alternatively in the more practical courses, since these might not be apparent from personnel rec-ords. Throughout the interview we try to judge clarity of thinking since this also gives us some indication of ability and ultimate progress. One good way to judge a person, I find, is to ask myself: Would he be easy to work with and would I like to have him as my close associate? Q. What part do first impressions play in your evaluation of people? A. I think we all form a first impression when we meet anyone. Therefore, if a generally neat appearance is presented, I think it helps. It would indicate that you considered this important to yourself and had some pride in the way the interviewer might size you up. Q. With only academic training as a background, how long will it be before I'll be handling responsible work? A. Not long at all. If a man joins a training program, or is placed direct-an operating job, he gets assignments which let him work up responsible jobs. We are hiring people with definite consideration for their potential in either technical work or the management field, but their initial jobs will be important and responsible. Q. How will the fact that l've had to work hard in my engineering studies, with no time for a lot of outside activi-ties, affect my employment possibilities? A. You're concerned, I'd guess, with all the talk of the quest for "well-rounded men." We do look for this characteristic, but being president of the student council isn't the only indication of this trait. Through talking with your professors, for example, we can determine who takes the active role in group projects and gets along well with other students in the class. This can be equally important in our judgment. Q. How important are high scholastic grades in your decision to hire a man? A. At G.E. we must have men who are technically competent. Your grades give us a pretty good indication of this and are also a measure of the way you have applied your-self. When we find someone whose grades are lower than might be expected from his other characteristics, we look into it to find out if there are circumstances which may have contributed. Q. What consideration do you give work experience gained prior to graduation? A. Often a man with summer work experience in his chosen academic GENERAL ELECTRIC field has a much better idea of what he wants to do. This helps us decide where he would be most likely to succeed or where he should start his career. Many students have had to work hard during college or sum-mers, to support themselves. These men obviously have a motivating desire to become engineers that we find highly desirable. Q. Do you feel that a man must know exactly what he wants to do when he is being interviewed? A. No, I don't. It is helpful if he has thought enough about his interests to be able to discuss some general directions he is considering. For example, he might know whether he wants product engineering work, or the marketing of technical prod-ucts, or the engineering associated with manufacturing. On G-E training programs, rotating assignments are designed to help men find out more about their true interests before they make their final choice. Q. How do military commitments affect your recruiting? A. Many young men today have military commitments when they graduate. We feel it is to their advantage and ours to accept employment after graduation and then fulfill their obligations. We have a limited number of copies of a Department of Defense booklet de-scribing, in detail, the many ways in which the latter can be done. Just write to Engineering Personnel, Bldg. 36, 5th Floor, General Electric Company, Schenectady 5, N. Y. 933-8 *LOOK FOR other interviews dis-cussing: • Advancement in Large Companies • Salary • Personal Development.