bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
High Current Carbon Arc
Authors: Finkelnburg W.
Published: January 2009

The most powerful and one of the most interesting known sources of high brightness and highest temperature, the high current carbon arc, is treated here both experimentally and theoretically.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

For several years the annual reports to the members of the American Institute of Physics have begun by reviewing the general position of physics in America.
Great Britain
Authors: Appleton Edward
Published: January 2009

It was the impact of the first World War which led the British Government to organized action regarding scientific research in the civil field. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, usually known as DSIR, was established during that war as a separate department with the Lord President of the Council as the responsible Minister, and organizations, also under the Lord President, were also formed for agricultural and medical research.
Physics in the oil industry
Authors: Morgan Frank
Published: January 2009

Long before Drake, in 1859, demonstrated that oil could be obtained by sinking wells, primitive man found it necessary to lubricate the axles of his carts and wagons to reduce friction and diminish wear. Lubricant taken from the axle of a chariot in a tomb sealed in about 1400 BC was analyzed and found to be beef or mutton tallow or a product of similar characteristics suitable for use in a warm climate. The first steam engines were lubricated with tallow, castor oil, and lard oil. While such animal and vegetable oils served their purpose in the primitive machine, they would be impractical in the engines of today, largely because of their inability to withstand the high temperatures involved. Oil in the crankcase of a heavy duty engine will reach one hundred and fifty degrees centigrade and the temperature at the upper piston ring grooves may exceed two hundred and fifty degrees centigrade. These high temperatures and the large quantities of air pulled through the crankcase ventilator make conditions especially favorable for oxidizing the oil which increases its viscosity, forms and precipitates sludge, and develops acidity. Fortunately chemical inhibitors have been found, small traces of which can be added to oils to reduce their susceptibility to oxidation.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

The Executive Committee, meeting on May 25, took various actions of a managerial nature with respect to current operations of the Institute.
Design for acoustics
Authors: Beranek Leo L.
Published: January 2009

In Rotterdam, Holland there is a three-story apartment house, about one block long, with forty-eight apartments. Except for a noticeable difference in types of windows, the general construction appears orthodox. But this building is a large, realistic field laboratory for studying the best possible methods of quieting and heating apartment buildings. Construction details differ from apartment to apartment. Each wall and each floor is, in effect, a test panel.
Optical Society
Authors: Webb J. H.
Published: January 2009

The winter meeting of the Optical Society of America, held at the Statler Hotel in New York City on March 10–12, opened with a symposium on luminescence.
Albert Einstein Seventy
Authors: Wigner E. P.
Published: January 2009

About three hundred physicists from the Eastern region assembled on March 19 in Frick Chemical Laboratory on the Princeton Campus to listen to six addresses, and even more, to express, by their presence, their good wishes and their appreciation for what Albert Einstein has done for physics. The occasion was Dr. Einstein's seventieth birthday, which he quietly celebrated a few days before at his home.
Cosmic Rays and the Sun
Authors: Richtmyer R. D.
Published: January 2009

If cosmic rays are assumed to fill interstellar space, the total energy involved (being, in fact, comparable with that of starlight) is too great to be readily explainable.
The Masotron Mass
Authors: Brode R. B.
Published: January 2009

The mesotron as normally found in nature has an energy of about one billion electron volts and a half life for disintegration of a few microseconds.
Oscillating Polymers
Authors: Ballou J. W.
Published: January 2009

During the past several years there has been considerable interest in the elastic and dissipative properties of high polymers, in particular those properties which lend themselves to acoustic or other dynamic methods of measurement in which frequency is a variable.
Acoustics and modern physics
Authors: Morse Philip M.
Published: January 2009

Before the war it was always hard for a physicist to know what to answer when asked what he did. Any answer which included the word “physics” resulted either in complete lack of recognition or in some form of medical humor. I am reminded of a friend who spent a confused and confusing time with a local draft board, some seven years ago, in small middle western town, trying to explain why a young physicist should not be transformed into a G.I. just then. After a series of dissertations and questions and explanations on the subject of “what is a physicist?” my friend saw a gleam of understanding appear in one pair of eyes. “I see,” said one of the board members, “a physicist is a kind of an electrician! Why didn't you say so?”
Dangerous currents in the surf
Authors: Shepard Francis P.
Published: January 2009

Surf bathing leads to the drowning of thousands of people each summer. “Caught in the undertow” is the usual explanation for these disasters and yet there may be no such thing as undertow. In dictionaries it is defined as “the current beneath the surface which sets seaward when waves are breaking on the shore.” Many geological textbooks contain brief discussions of undertow, ascribing it to the seaward return of landward driven surface water.
Visual Color Standard
Authors: Hamly D. H.
Published: January 2009

Catesby and Edwards in the early 18th century, and others since then, have made serious attempts to describe and record colors, feeling that color holds important information for the biologist.
Pulse Height Analyzer
Authors: Watkins Dean A.
Published: January 2009

In nuclear experiments where conditions may change rapidly it is desirable to obtain simultaneously a number of points on the pulse height distribution curve, which is a plot of the number of particles given off in the experiment versus their energy.
Crystals
Authors: Jaffe Hans
Published: January 2009

In times past, well developed clear crystals were a rare gift of nature and were highly valued. Their luster and regularity of shape have been a source of pleasure to the layman through the centuries and a cause for speculation to the naturalist and philosopher.
The highest aim of the physicist
Authors: Rowland Henry A.
Published: January 2009

Gentlemen and Fellow Physicists of America:

We meet to-day on an occasion which marks an epoch in the history of physics in America; may the future show that it also marks an epoch in the history of the science which this society is organized to cultivate! For we meet here in the interest of a science above all sciences, which deals with the foundation of the Universe, with the constitution of matter from which everything in the Universe is made, and with the ether of space by which alone the various portions of matter forming the Universe affect each other even at such distances as we may never expect to traverse whatever the progress of our science in the future.
No Ten Percent Physics
Authors: Neddermeyer S.
Published: January 2009

Unity and smoothness are characteristics which are not easily produced in an account of a meeting of the American Physical Society, and even much less in this account of the Seattle meeting, of June 27–29, whose keynote was in fact the opposite of unity.
High Speed Thermometry
Authors: Marlow D. G.
Published: January 2009

A “sonic thermometer,” useful in the study of shock waves and in wind tunnel investigations in regions of subsonic flow, has been developed which permits measurement of the temperature behind a traveling shock wave with a high degree of accuracy.
Chips
Authors: Smith Cyril S.
Published: January 2009

A microplaner, helpful in studying diffusion in metals, has been developed which will take as many as fifty cuts per millimeter from a sample.
Ferreting out acts on erromagnetism
Authors: McKeehan L. W.
Published: January 2009

Oliver Herford wrote a poem about the dinosaur in which the advantage of having two widely separated brains of low quality is emphasized approximately in these words:

“For he could think, without congestion, Upon both sides of any question.”
Holes and electrons
Authors: Shockley William
Published: January 2009

Recently a far more intimate and detailed view of the basic processes by which electrons carry current has been made possible by new experiments based upon the invention of the transistor.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

The Institute has received with much regret the resignation of David A. Katcher as editor of Physics Today.
Acoustical Society Meeting
Authors: Abbott Ernest J. , Steinberg J. C. , Davis Hallowell
Published: January 2009

The Pennsylvania State College played host for the thirty-ninth meeting of the Acoustical Society of America last June 22, 23, and 24. Sessions covering a wide variety of subjects (including such matters as noise, hearing, speech, transducers and recording, the medical and biological effects of sound, the propagation of sound, etc.) were held in the college's Osmond Laboratory. A total of about ninety papers was given, of which something less than ten percent were invited and the remainder were contributed. Three of the meeting's ten sessions are reviewed below.
Ferrites, Ions, and Aperitifs
Authors: Goldman J. E.
Published: January 2009

The celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Polytechnic Institute of the University of Grenoble provided the locale for the third international conference on magnetism held in Grenoble, July 3–7.
The Trill Threshold
Authors: Miller George A.
Published: January 2009

The major weapon psychologists have for their exploration of perceptual processes is the threshold, the breaking point at which an event stops being perceived one way and starts being perceived another.
Exchange Currents in Nuclei
Authors: Osborn R. K.
Published: January 2009

The existence of exchange forces between nucleons, that is, of forces requiring the exchange of identity of a proton and neutron during an interaction between them, implies that electric charge must be transferred between the neutron and proton and therefore that electric currents flow in the intervening space between the particles.
X-Ray Dose Measurements
Authors: Andrews Howard L.
Published: January 2009

Recently developed high output beryllium window x-ray tubes are very useful for work in radiation chemistry but dosage determinations are difficult because of the high output and the rapid absorption of the soft radiation.
How firm a foundation?
Authors: Schauer Charles H.
Published: January 2009

The somewhat supercilious voice from the telephone receiver presumed that the position of the decimal point was a typographical error. In the course of the next day or so, two more voices of varied inflections, representing successively higher echelons in the editorial hierarchy of a popular periodical, raised the same question and accepted assurance with equal reluctance. The difficulty was the record of a Research Corporation grant of $5,000 made to the University of California in 1931 to assist E. O. Lawrence in constructing a cyclotron. From the perspective of 1948 there just weren't enough zeros in this figure for it to be of significance in the same sentence as the word cyclotron.
Millimeter waves
Authors: Pierce J. R.
Published: January 2009

Electromagnetic radiation, an inexhaustable natural resource, plays an extremely important part in modern technology and living. We use very short wavelength radiation, that is, x-rays, in searching for otherwise hidden defects. We use longer wavelength radiation, that is, light, to see by. We can take photographs with infrared radiation. And all of these may be used through spectroscopy to identify substances and to study the structure of matter.
Conductivity of an Electron-Proton Gas
Authors: Spitzer L.
Published: January 2009

Previous detailed analyses of conductivity in gases, developed by Enskog, Chapman, and others usually involve the tacit assumption that each collision between two molecules involves a large change in their velocities, either in magnitude or direction.
Binocular Visual Space
Authors: Boeder Paul
Published: January 2009

Helmholtz discovered that vertical threads which to an observer appear to lie in a frontal parallel plane lie actually in a curved surface.
Sound Scattering
Authors: Twersky Victor
Published: January 2009

The nonspecular or scattered reflection of sound by certain surfaces composed of planar distributions of either semicylindrical or hemispherical bosses small compared to wavelength (“scattering reflectors”) is treated by extending the exact eigenfunction solutions obtained for the problem of the single boss on an infinite plane and a plane wave at an arbitrary angle of incidence.
A Message To Physicists
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

Physics Today is the journal for all physicists.
South Of The Border
Authors: Darrow Karl K.
Published: January 2009

APS meets in Mexico City
Secret science
Authors: Manley John H.
Published: January 2009

Science has been a traditionally open subject, and as such it has played an important role in fostering friendly relations between men of all nationalities through their common interest in scientific matters. Free exchange of information, criticism, and comment has been a real and vital part of scientific tradition throughout the world. This is no longer the case. In this country and abroad considerable portions of biology, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, metallurgy, and physics are advancing in a secrecy imposed by law. Restrictions are placed on discussion not only of basic scientific information but also on many associated technologies which play an important role in shaping thought on matters of national significance.
Theory of Superconductivity
Authors: Tisza Laszlo
Published: January 2009

In quantum mechanics an electric current is closely connected with translational degeneracy.
Ionic Mathematics
Authors: Mayer Joseph E.
Published: January 2009

Ionic solutions differ from nonelectrolytic solutions of the same molecular weight in showing much greater deviations from the laws of perfect solutions.
Photometrics
Authors: Tyler John E.
Published: January 2009

Photometric devices, especially those intended for the measurement of color, must be highly sensitive to small differences if they are to give useful information.
Airglow
Authors: Elvey C. T.
Published: January 2009

The airglow is that part of the light from the night sky which originates in the upper atmosphere.
Ionospheric Physics
Authors: Gerson N. C.
Published: January 2009

International Conference at Penn State
Must we always be gadgeteers?
Authors: Morse Philip M.
Published: January 2009

As far as this writer can discover, the typical response of the physicist who wished to contribute to this latest international crisis has been to go to Los Alamos, or some other government laboratory for weapon development, for a summer or a year. No doubt this has been a valuable contribution to solving the present crisis and no doubt it has made the contributor feel he is “doing his bit”. But is this all the physicist can contribute, the development of more and fancier weapons? Is the only contribution of physics, to the year-by-year needs of this country, to be more and fancier gadgets?
Physics in the watch industry
Authors: Van Horn J. A.
Published: January 2009

To the philosopher, time is one of the fundamental quantities. To the average man, time has something to do with dinner. Both find it incapable of definition but subject to measurement, and to the latter at least, the measurement is of importance. Moreover, the importance of the measurement and correspondingly of its accuracy has increased as the complexity of life has increased, so that he no longer finds an estimate from the sun's position satisfactory. Instead he not only wants but needs a portable device for measuring time intervals, which device he calls a watch and upon whose accuracy he sets requirements which are astounding when compared to the accuracy of other instruments.
The tools of the physics teacher
Authors: Sutton Richard M.
Published: January 2009

A physicist has been described by Eddington as a pointer-reading creature. If that is so, then the physics teacher must be a “pointer-reading creature with an attachment for students.” And there may be some pessimists who think that all students are resistance coupled!
Small Angles and Small Particles
Authors: Vineyard George H.
Published: January 2009

The structure of matter is an ancient mystery which continues to provide fruitful ground for study. Strangely enough, we possess more reliable information on the structure of atoms and small molecules than on the structure of colloidal particles and macromolecules which are very many times larger. Partly this is so because such particles are of greater complexity and occur in greater diversity than their atomic constituents, but it is also owing to the lack of adequate techniques for examining and measuring these particles. Among the tools for such study is the scattering of radiation by a substance.
A Serious Turn
Authors: Critchfield Charles
Published: January 2009

The corridors and the common room in Eckhart Hall were remarkably devoid of buttonholers and other truants, a component that has been prominent, hitherto, at the postwar APS meetings. The Chicago meeting, November 25 and 26, had the largest attendance in the history of that event. An estimated 700 were present; the registration exceeded 550. The spirit of the meeting was one of earnestness and sober attention to the material that was being presented in the scheduled papers.
Sound in St. Louis
Authors: Jones R. Clark
Published: January 2009

The small number of papers at the thirty-eighth meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, held in St. Louis November 17–19, 1949, made it possible to dispense with simultaneous sessions and to have a relatively uncrowded program with ample allowance for discussion. The result was an intimate, relaxed atmosphere which was reminiscent of the prewar meetings of the Society.
Meson Structure
Authors: Yang C. N.
Published: January 2009

It is customary to assume that electrons, neutrinos, nucleons, π and μ mesons are “elementary,” i.e., structureless, an assumption that is questioned in this paper where it is pointed out that the present experimental information might perhaps be explained equally well with other models for the structure of these particles.
Total Reflection Filter
Authors: Billings B. H.
Published: January 2009

Until recently prisms or gratings were customarily used for isolating a narrow band of wavelengths, but during the last few years a series of interference filters have been developed, the commonest of which is analogous to the Fabry-Perot interferometer and consists of a layer of dielectric about one wavelength thick, sandwiched between two layers of silver.
Ferromagnetic Crystals
Authors: Bozorth R. M.
Published: January 2009

Much of our knowledge of the solid state of matter depends on the study of the properties of single crystals.
Electric Breakdown
Authors: Callen Herbert
Published: January 2009

Pure single crystals subjected to an intense electric field under carefully controlled conditions break down at characteristic minimum field strengths (about 10° volts per centimeter).
Ultrafast
Authors: Fletcher R. C.
Published: January 2009

Voltage impulses may be helpful, among their other uses, in studying the starting characteristics of physical phenomena which they themselves have initiated.
Conductivity at Microwave Frequencies
Authors: Adler Fred P.
Published: January 2009

If a high frequency electric field is applied to an ionized gas, the resulting oscillatory motion of the free electrons will give rise to an alternating current.
The genesis of cosmic radiation
Authors: Korff Serge A.
Published: January 2009

The total energies involved in cosmic radiation are so large, individually and collectively, that however they are generated the process or processes involved certainly are basic to the total structure of the universe. Moreover, since some of the hypotheses suggest experimental tests, the speculation on the origin of cosmic radiation has been extremely beneficial to the progress of physics. The speculations exhibit an exciting variety and give full play to imaginative thinking which, nevertheless, must be limited by experimental facts and by reasonable conjectures based on experimental facts.
Radio astronomy
Authors: Ryle Martin
Published: January 2009

Until recently astronomy was restricted to the visual band of the electromagnetic spectrum, and to wavelengths near to the visual band. Our immense store of astronomical knowledge has been obtained from observations made in a band of about four octaves of the spectrum, although measuring techniques are available for about forty octaves.
Physicists and the English language
Authors: Brown William Fuller
Published: January 2009

Science is a creative activity, and a physicist describing his own research is like a composer conducting his own symphony. Though plenty of purposive activity is involved, the primary motivation is emotional. Essentially, he is yelling “Eureka!”. Yet it is not enough to have the creative urge: it is also necessary to know the techniques for expressing it. Language is considerably older than the uses to which the physicist is now putting it, and his own revisions of it have been only superficial. Some critical examination of its peculiarities is therefore in order.
Research and National Security
Authors: White Marsh W.
Published: January 2009

The significance of science as an element in the national security has never before been felt so keenly nor on so widespread a level as it is today, a fact that is reflected in part by an ever present need for scientists to fill vacant or newly created positions in government agencies. At the same time it is recognized in scientific and government circles alike that progress demands a working climate favorable to the growth of fundamental ideas in all branches of science. To some extent these needs are in conflict, for the individuals whose services are most in demand for the carrying out of specific projects in the applied sciences are very often the ones who are also best prepared to contribute usefully to basic research.
Gaseous Electronics
Authors: Hornbeck John A.
Published: January 2009

Important progress has been reported toward identification and quantitative understanding of the many individual processes that make analysis of gaseous conduction so complicated. This was reported at the second of what promises to be an annual conference on gaseous electronics, held at the Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania November 3–5, 1949; approximately two hundred scientists attended representing 21 educational institutions, 27 industrial laboratories, and 15 other organizations. The forty-four papers presented demonstrated the same breadth of interest that was evident in the first conference, held at Brookhaven in October, 1948.
Last Days of ASXRED and CSA
Authors: Parrish William
Published: January 2009

After more than a year's study and discussion the members of the American Society for X-Ray and Electron Diffraction and the Crystallographic Society of America have voted to form a single new society, the American Crystallographic Association. This new organization will eliminate the problems caused by the overlapping interests and memberships of the two previous societies but it is planned to continue similar types of meetings and publications. It now has about 500 members including physicists, chemists, physical chemists, mineralogists, metallurgists, mathematicians, and biologists from universities, government, and private research foundations and industrial research laboratories.
Cosmic Nuclei
Authors: Bradt H. L.
Published: January 2009

The primary cosmic radiation consists of atomic nuclei of the chemical elements.
Ultrasonic Absorption
Authors: Hazzard G. W.
Published: January 2009

Classically, absorption of sound waves in liquids was attributed to viscosity and heat conduction, with heat conduction playing a minor role.
Light Scattering
Authors: Stockmayer W. H.
Published: January 2009

The recent revival of interest in light scattering, initiated by Debye and others, is principally due to its usefulness for studying large molecules, such as those of proteins or synthetic high polymers.
Radar
Authors: Horton G. W.
Published: January 2009

Although radar waves have been used primarily for detection and communication purposes, they may also be used in a variety of other experiments, including investigations which overlap or extend optical experiments.
Exchange
Authors: Falkoff David L.
Published: January 2009

Recent high energy experiments on the scattering of neutrons by protons support the theory that the fundamental nuclear force between these particles is of the “exchange type.rdquo;
Image Formation
Authors: Webb J. H.
Published: January 2009

According to the reciprocity law of photochemical reactions, the photoproduct produced is dependent only upon the product of light intensity and exposing time, and is independent of either of these factors separately so long as they are varied reciprocally.
Living matter and physical laws
Authors: Reitz John R. , Longmire Conrad
Published: January 2009

Numerous attempts have been made in the recent past to apply the laws and the methodology of physics and chemistry to the life processes. Although these occasionally have been marked by a certain amount of success, biology as a science retains much of the empirical quality that characterized physics and chemistry in their early days.
Microwaves and sound
Authors: Kock Winston E.
Published: January 2009

The use of lenses to focus waves other than those of light is not new, either in the field of acoustics or that of radio. Indeed, many physics students must have seen demonstrations of the bending of sound waves by a prism of carbon dioxide confined within a membrane. Hertz himself used prisms of pitch to bend the short radio waves with which he worked in demonstrating the like nature of light and of the electromagnetic radiation predicted by Maxwell. These were laboratory experiments, however, and it was not until lenses were used in connection with microwave antennas during and after the war that the full potentialities of the dioptrics of microwaves, and later, of sound, became apparent.
Solid State Symposium
Authors: Brill R. , Kallman Hartmut
Published: January 2009

As a means of welcoming Paul P. Ewald, formerly of Queens University in Belfast, to the chair of physics of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, an all day conference was held last October 15 on the physics of the solid state. The conference, which was sponsored jointly by the Institute and the Metropolitan section of the American Physical Society, was opened with a paper by Professor Ewald, in which he reviewed the program and placed the various scheduled topics in the general context of crystal physics.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

The recent meetings of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers in New York provided an opportunity to convene a number of committees and boards—mostly in the Institute's building on 55th Street.
Tracks and Stars
Authors: Shurcliff W. A.
Published: January 2009

Nuclear stars in photographic plates can only be detected by using a microscope since each prong of the star is merely a dotted line of silver grains less than one micron in diameter.
Bubble
Authors: Wilson H. A.
Published: January 2009

The present paper is a more detailed account of a brief note that appeared in 1946 in the Physical Review (69:538).
Faraday Effect
Authors: Waring C. E.
Published: January 2009

In 1846 Michael Faraday discovered that any transparent isotropic medium, which in itself may be optically inactive, would rotate the plane of polarization when placed in a magnetic field.
Pressure Balance
Authors: Swenson C. A.
Published: January 2009

In physical and chemical work it is often necessary to use moderately high (10 to 100 atm.) pressures that are reproducible and are accurately known.
Light Intensity
Authors: Keller Herbert B.
Published: January 2009

In geometrical optics, light is said to travel along rays, but nothing is said about its intensity.
High Speed Oscillography
Authors: Kelley G. G.
Published: January 2009

Users of electronic equipment in the field of nuclear physics have been pushing continually toward greater speed.
Industrial research foundations
Authors: Leedy Haldon A. , Godwin Francis W.
Published: January 2009

The development of industrial research foundations as an important force in the advance of applied science is unquestionably one of the major contributions of this century in the field of technological progress. Their appearance on the scene—in the United States at least—ended an era of hit-or miss invention and unorganized technical development characterized by the free lance investigator in his attic or backyard workshop.
From Archimedes to supersonics
Authors: Kelley James Bernard
Published: January 2009

In recent years the great interest in supersonic aerodynamics has overshadowed the other fields of fluid mechanics to a very large extent. The glamor and romance of high speed have caught the fancy of almost everyone so that one might suspect that little or no fluid mechanics exists outside the area of supersonics. Yet there is scarcely any field of physics which reaches further into antiquity for its origins and is at the same time more modern than fluid mechanics. Its history is studied with great names in science from Archimedes through the Bernoullis down to Jukowski, Prandtl, and von Karman in the present era.
The Crying of Bats
Authors: Griffin Donald R.
Published: January 2009

Biologists have known for some time that bats guide their flight through darkness by means of special cries which are above the frequency range of human hearing.
Deuteron Disintegration
Authors: Longmire Conrad
Published: January 2009

One of the central problems of nuclear physics has been the determination of the potential acting between two nucleons in the state of zero relative angular momentum (S state).
Fine Lines in Soot
Authors: Eldredge Kenneth R.
Published: January 2009

During an investigation of the friction of rolling it was desirable to have a simple and direct method for recording frictional data.
City Noise
Authors: Bonvallet G. L.
Published: January 2009

A survey of noise in the city of Chicago has been in progress over the past two years under the sponsorship of the Armour Research Foundation of Illinois Institute of Technology, in cooperation with the Greater Chicago Noise Reduction Council.
Analytic Source
Authors: Rouse Arthur G.
Published: January 2009

In a new source for spectro-chemical analysis, the two functions of the source, those of getting the sample material into the discharge and then exciting it, are separately controlled.
Spectrograph
Authors: Pound R. V.
Published: January 2009

A simple oscillating circuit for detecting nuclear magnetic resonance absorption has been developed that makes use of an electronic negative resistance to maintain oscillation.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

The big brother of the physics journal, the Physical Review, had quite a year in 1949.
Stress Phenomena
Authors: Lyons W. James
Published: January 2009

The seventh meeting of the Division of High-Polymer Physics of the American Physical Society was held on February 2–4 at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and Columbia University. The division, organized in 1944 as the second one authorized by the APS Council, now numbers about two hundred seventy members and thirty-five associates. A symposium on stress phenomena from the respective viewpoints of solid state and high-polymer physics was a feature of the New York program, which, in all, consisted of twenty-seven papers. A number of high-polymer papers were also presented in a special session on the general program of the Society.
The composition of our universe
Authors: Brown Harrison
Published: January 2009

One of the more difficult fundamental problems which confronts science today is that of determining the chemical composition of the matter of which our universe is made. Man, bound to the surface of his planet, can see the billions of stars which exist within the galaxy of which his sun is a member, and the billions of galaxies extending in all directions as far as his telescopes can penetrate; but he has only the light that the stars emit with which to work. He knows that a very large amount of matter is scattered throughout interstellar space; but he cannot sample it. He can see the other planets within his solar system; but he can study only the light that they reflect from the sun. He is even prevented by the thick solid crust under his feet from sampling the interior of his own planet.
Mesons
Authors: Camerini Ugo , Muirhead Hugh
Published: January 2009

The story of how the existence of the meson was established starts much earlier than the finding of the first of these new particles. The story begins, as most tales of new scientific discoveries begin, with scientists obtaining experimental data which cannot be interpreted in terms of previously accepted ideas. In this case, the apparently inexplicable data came from studies on the properties of the cosmic radiation.
The spirit of research in the United States
Authors: Guinier André
Published: January 2009

It takes courage to risk speaking of America and Americans after a visit of only two months. Having, moreover, in the course of my trip visited only laboratories and scientists in a specialized field, I was not able to have more than a partial view of the scientific life in that tremendous country. I intend to recount here only some impressions received from contact with American researchers and to speak of the differences between the spirit of American and French scientists.
Symposium on Thermionics at NYU
Authors: Moore George E.
Published: January 2009

On January 31 and February 1, 1950, the Tuesday and Wednesday preceding the New York meeting of the American Physical Society, the Division of Electron Physics of the Society and the Panel on Electron Tubes of the military's Research and Development Board presented a symposium on thermionics.
Solutions of He3 in He4
Authors: Rice O. K.
Published: January 2009

When liquid helium is cooled below the λ-point at 2.19 °K it undergoes a second-order transition involving no latent heat or volume change.
Micro Calorimeter
Authors: Jenks G. H.
Published: January 2009

Calorimetric measurement of the heat evolved upon absorption of nuclear radiations may be applied to the study of radioactive isotopes in several ways.
Converted
Authors: Halford Ralph S.
Published: January 2009

Widespread use of infrared absorption spectroscopy in research and industry creates a demand for automatic, double-beam instruments that will produce records of percent transmission versus wavelength.
The latent image
Authors: Webb J. H.
Published: January 2009

An ordinary photographic negative appears to the unaided eye as a series of smooth density values which may either gradually merge one into the other or meet one another along sharply defined lines. If such a negative be greatly enlarged one can see that the image at each point is not smooth but has structure and that lines which appeared sharp are really diffuse. The series of developed images illustrates, by successive stages of magnification, the transition from the familiar smoothedover negative image to the microscopic granular image comprised of a haphazard distribution of discrete silver grains. It is thus the individual grain that is the seat of the photographic process and the latent image problem is concerned with the photochemical process that occurs in the individual grains of the emulsion during exposure to light and prior to development.
Magic Numbers
Authors: Feenberg E.
Published: January 2009

A feature of the New York meeting of the American Physical Society was the symposium on nuclear shell structure held in Columbia University's Horace Mann Auditorium. The symposium, which took place on Saturday afternoon, February 4, was developed to present a summary of theoretical ideas and experimental facts involved in recent theories of nuclear structure. G. Placzek presided.
Photographic Sensitivity
Authors: Hoerlin Herman
Published: January 2009

The third international conference on “Fundamental Mechanisms of Photographic Sensitivity” was held at the H. H. Wills Physical Laboratory of the University of Bristol from March 28th to April 1st, 1950. The general character of the meeting was determined by the participation of industrial and academic research workers in almost equal numbers. Thus the papers and discussions represented a fruitful mixture of pure and applied science.
Optical Society
Authors: Grosch H. R. J.
Published: January 2009

By scheduling six pairs of simultaneous sessions, and by opening the sessions with unfeeling promptness at nine each morning, the arrangers of the program for the winter meeting of the Optical Society managed to give each speaker his full meed of time. Indeed, the sessions were notable for the amount of discussion. The meeting was held at the Hotel Statler in New York from Thursday, March 9 through Saturday, March 11. Four hundred and twenty members and guests registered and a new record was set when the total number of invited and contributed papers reached seventy-nine.
Ice Energy
Authors: Workman E. J.
Published: January 2009

During the two hundred years following Franklin's discovery of the electrical nature of thunderstorms, many different mechanisms were suggested for the process of electrical charge generation in such storms.
Magnetic Resonance
Authors: Van Vleck J. H.
Published: January 2009

The precession of the electron spin in a strong magnetic field causes ferromagnetic solids to have a “magnetic resonance spectrum”, which is observed by applying a weak alternating measuring field at right angles to the strong constant field.
Molecular Optics
Authors: Berry C. R.
Published: January 2009

The similarity between the electron-diffraction pattern of molecules scattering independently and the opticaldiffraction pattern of suitably prepared two-dimensional models is demonstrated.
Social Physics
Authors: Stewart John Q.
Published: January 2009

In the seventeenth century, the great period when modern science was being founded, John Graunt, pioneer demographer, was a member of the Royal Society, and Edmund Halley, astronomer, established basic principles of life insurance.
Physics at Oak Ridge
Authors: Weinberg Alvin M.
Published: January 2009

The research effort here in Oak Ridge bears in some measure on almost every phase of the country's atomic energy program. For the laboratory here—unlike the national laboratories at Argonne, Brookhaven, Berkeley, Ames, and Los Alamos—has no single primary function but has many different areas in which it contributes, with about equal emphasis, to the development of atomic energy technology.
Hazards of common solvents
Authors: Hardy Harriet L.
Published: January 2009

Somehow people working in the fields of exact science must be persuaded to accept the great variation in the reactivity of biological and hence human material to exposure to chemical agents. Certain organic solvents, widely used in the laboratory, are potentially very toxic. The importance of recognizing how different people vary widely in their reactions to these toxic materials cannot be overemphasized in evaluating the relative hazards of materials in use in modern laboratories. Proper procedures, hoods and required protective equipment, substitution of a safe for a toxic material where possible—all provide means for safe work. Scientists working with these materials must, however, know the dangers. Familiarity should breed caution.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

A welcome and interesting recent visitor to 57 East 55th Street was Dr. F. C. Toy, president of “The Institute of Physics” in Great Britain.
Pale Orange to Bluest Blue
Authors: Middleton W. E. K.
Published: January 2009

When the International Commission on Illumination adopted its colour metric in 1931 the possibility of calculating a numerically exact specification of certain aspects of colour reacted strongly on the imaginations of workers in many fields.
Luminescent Counting
Authors: Seitz Frederick
Published: January 2009

Statistical variations in a counting system which consists of a source, a luminescent crystal, and a photomultiplier are analysed in this paper by the method of the generating function.
Nuclear Emulsions
Authors: Reines F.
Published: January 2009

Developments in the past decade have made possible the use of emulsions sensitive to particles in accurate nuclear experimentation.
Geomagnetic Cosmic Ray Effects
Authors: Neher H. V.
Published: January 2009

For many years data have been collected on the intensity of cosmic rays at numerous places on the earth, both at sea level and at high altitudes.
Polystyrene, Warm and Cool
Authors: Flory P. J.
Published: January 2009

This investigation represents an attempt to understand why noncrystalline rubber-like polymers suddenly lose their flexibility and become brittle when cooled to a particular temperature, and conversely why an amorphous plastic such as polystyrene when heated to a particular temperature suddenly becomes either flexible and rubbery or fluid.
The Polystyrene Molecule
Authors: Zimm B. H.
Published: January 2009

This paper is the report of an intensive study of the molecular properties of a typical high polymer, polystyrene, using the newly popular light scattering method.
New Spectrometer
Authors: Bruner Joseph A.
Published: January 2009

Three of the most important characteristics of a nuclear spectrometer are its resolving power, its transmission, and its cost of construction.
Mathematical Biophysics
Authors: Rapoport A.
Published: January 2009

Steady state kinetics of biological systems continues to be developed by John Z. Hearon along the lines suggested by the concept of flux applied to thermodynamic quantities.
Half an hour of creation…
Authors: Gamow George
Published: January 2009

In a very interesting article, “The Composition of Our Universe” (Physics Today, April, 1950), Dr. Harrison Brown brings forth convincing evidence which suggests strongly that our cosmos is remarkably uniform in its chemical composition. In fact, apart from a few notable exceptions which can be easily accounted for by local conditions, the relative abundance of various chemical elements is nearly the same on the earth, on the planets, on the sun and other stars of the Milky Way system, in the diffuse interstellar material, and in the distant spiral galaxies which represent the independent stellar systems of their own.
Nuclear induction
Authors: Bloch Felix
Published: January 2009

It is now somewhat over four years since the phenomenon was discovered which is alternately known as “nuclear magnetic resonance absorption” or “nuclear induction”. In the meantime it has become so widely known among physicists that it seems hardly necessary any more to explain it. Nevertheless, for the benefit of those who have not followed closely the developments we shall start with a brief recapitulation of the basic principles.
Institute Doings
Authors: Barton Henry A.
Published: January 2009

The recently enacted National Science Foundation was the subject of much discussion at the May 25th meeting of the Institute's executive committee.
Electromagnetic Waves
Authors: Kraus L. , Lurye J. , Shmoys J.
Published: January 2009

A symposium on the theory of electromagnetic waves was held at New York University at Washington Square under the joint sponsorship of NYU and the Geophysical Research Directorate of the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory on June 6, 7, and 8, 1950.
Apparent Size of Small Objects
Authors: Kern Stanley F. , Kern R. A.
Published: January 2009

Studies of small objects such as bacteriophage with the electron microscope show that the image sizes of objects before and after shadowing are different by a larger factor than can be accounted for by the actual thickness of the metal layer and by the greater contrast provided by shadow coatings.
Cosmic Ray Telescope
Authors: Coolidge J. E.
Published: January 2009

Since the initial measurements of the east-west asymmetry of cosmic radiation by B. Rossi, T. H. Johnson, and J. C. Street, many elaborate instruments have been employed to determine the nature of asymmetry and associated phenomena.
Spin and Angular Correlation
Authors: Falkoff D. L.
Published: January 2009

One of the main interests of experimental nuclear spectroscopy has been the determination of the spins (i.e. angular momenta) of atomic nuclei, for this information is important for any theory of nuclear structure.
Space Time Optics
Authors: Herzberger M.
Published: January 2009

The author considers such general physical problems as the generalization of the problems of optics, if extended to the space time continuum.
Fast Camera
Authors: Sultanoff M.
Published: January 2009

The velocity of the transients involved in the study of detonation and shock waves close to the edge of explosive charges is of the order of 8 millimeters per microsecond.
New Pressure Gage
Authors: LaGow H. E.
Published: January 2009

This gage was developed to measure air pressures in the upper atmosphere when mounted on a high speed rocket.
John Torrence Tate 1889–1950
Authors: Pegram George B.
Published: January 2009

John Torrence Tate, Professor of Physics in the University of Minnesota, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on May 27. An earlier attack in December, 1949, had kept him away from work for some time, but he had recovered to the point of working several hours daily, and he attended the Washington meeting of the American Physical Society, to the great pleasure of his fellow members.
Ultrasonics
Authors: Laufer Arthur R.
Published: January 2009

Some three thousand years ago according to the Old Testament, Joshua, the son of Nun, led the Israelites over the river Jordan into the promised land. And then, once each day for six days, seven priests carrying seven trumpets made of rams' horns circled the walled city of Jericho. And on the seventh day the priests circled the walls seven times, and on the seventh time the priests blew a loud blast on the trumpets, and the Israelites shouted a loud shout, and the walls of Jericho fell down flat. Thus must history reach back into antiquity to find the first allusion to the use of sound energy for a purpose other than hearing.
Young professional physicists
Authors: Murdoch Bernard C. , White Marsh W.
Published: January 2009

From 1936 to 1948 approximately 20,000 doctorates in the natural and applied sciences were granted in the United States. Of these, nearly 1700 were in physics. What has happened to these young people? In what types of work are they now engaged? Have they remained in physics or some very closely related discipline?