Evening star., 1901-11-16
THE REICHSANSTALT,
Germany's Institute for Scientific In
vestfgation.
From Pearson.s Magazine:

Uermany's lnstitute Tor Scientific In
vestigation.
From Pearson's Magazine
The Reichsanstalt. or, in other words. the
imperial physical and technical institute
of Germany, has faculty of 50 professors,
scientific assistants. mechanicians and not
single student. The institution has for its
purpose the investigation OF abstruse scien-
tific problems of heat light, electricity and
magnetism. Much of this work offers lit
tie promise of what we call immediate prac-
tical results. and yet the inquiries are in
reality profoundly practical, inasmuch as
they are laying adeep and solid foundation
for future scientific discovery. This is the
physical side of the Reichsanstalt. A CO.
ordinate department, that of technics seeks
to adapt the results of the special research
es and to accomplish for advanced me-
chanics what the physical department is
doing for advanced science.
Here in the Reichsanstak are set up the
most perfect instruments in the world for
measuring heat and cold, for finding the
preSSure-of the atmosphere for determin-
ing the strength of electric currents. for
measuring light, and for a score of other
purposes in which the utmost exactness is
required. Here are kept the purest gold,
silver, platinum, iridium, rhodium and tner
metals in the world-the standards of pur-
ity. Here Is the purest water in the world,
and the finest glass and the most perfect
weighing machines. Here be produced
and measured every temperature from that
of liquid air to that of the electric arc
light. And here is apparatus for general
ing electric currents of any potential from
one volt up to 1900 volts, and, what is
more, Of measuring them with almost abso-
lutte eXactness. Does the famous German
thermometer maker wish to know if his
thermometers or his barometers are abSo-
lutely correct? He sends them to the Reich
sanstalt for testing. When Krupp, the gun
builder of Essen, devises new kind of
nickel-steel he sends it to the Reichsanstalt
to ascertain exactly its coefficiency of ex
pansion in varying degrees of heat, it's cleo
trical conductivity and it's tensile strength.
When our own government wishes to be
certain that the incandeScent electric lights
which it is purchasing are marked with the
proper candle power. 1T must needs send
them to this distant German Institution for
testing; there is perhaps other place in
the world where it can be done, with such
accuracy. Such consignment of Ameri-
can lamps had just passed through the
ReichSanstalt at the time of my visit. The
pitch of the music which you hear at the
opera has undoubtedly been regulated by
tuning forks bearing the peculiar blue
marking of the Reichsanstalt; the ther-
mometer with which your physician takes
your temperature when you are ill, If 1t
be of the best make, owes its accuracy to
the same source.
Discoveries Of value are made in these
rooms devices are invented which. if pat
ented, might yield the inventor a fortune
but everything is free to science. In Ger
many the highest science offers what it
finds for science sake This is one of many
reasons why Prof Roentgen, who might
have made his fortune from the world
benefiting x-rays, is SO highly esteemed in
Germany today.