Evening star., 1934-10-28
A HOUSE OF WONDERS
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

founded such laboratories. In Amer
lea it was the National Bureau of
Standards. As custodian OF the
standards the bureau certifes the
standards used in science and indus
Try, bringing new order of accuracy
at Its souYce-the standards room OF
the factory. How this was so well
done Is now history. Research pro-
grams were involved. These were so
fruitful that within a quarter of a
century some 1920 industrial re-
search laboratories were established
in this country.
On 56-acre site in the northwest
suburbs Of the National Capital Is
this city Of science set on a hill.
Twenty buildings are connected by
tunnels supplying complex services
as vacuum, compressed air, freezing
brine. Precise time service, too, is
wired into any room from a master
clock-true to a fifth Of second per
month. Here, too, are instrument
shops, glass shops, wind tunnel 400
foot tank, plumbing tower, radio
towers. foundry and rolling mill,
clay hlrs and other experimental
plants for making products under
measured control. The low-tempera-
ture laboratory is equipped to liouefy
any known gas and to solidify all ex-
cept helium.
An impressive sight Is the giant
testing machine, which has a pulling
power of a million pounds and a
crushing power of thousand tons
Titan able to crush to destruction
huge structural columns or tear apart
steel shafts inches in diameter.
With this can be measured crushing
force up to a thousand tons, or so
small as barely to crush an eggshell.
Another machine four times more
powerful bears the enormous stresses
used to test sections of great bridges
and other structures.
The union of radio and aviation. a
fruitful combination, is shown in two
outstanding discoveries. The radio
direction finder, developed at the bu-
reau, found its use in the radio bea-
con. radio beam. in effect, lays a
track in the trackleSS air. The pilot
sees his pointer or hears a signal
telling whether he is on course, or If
OAA NOA4 oCY ny lAON "A
beacon will permit arrival at an air.
port from any direction.
The latest achievement, of uncanny
ingenuity and utmost utility, is the
blind-landing system. originated by
the Bureau OF Standards. With the
new system, guided only by indicators
on his switchboard, the pilot need see
nothing outside his cockpit. A re-
markable combination of circuits
and beacons announces his arrival at
the airport, and the pilot, keeping his
index in a prescribed position, may
safely glide down an unseen curved
beacon to happy landing. This for
all time establishes the possibility Of
continuous air flight and unbroken
schedules in dark or densest fog.
The Bureau of Standards is laying
a basis for its great work in the fu-
ture in ways unknown to the public.
In an underground laboratory Is an
improved ultramicrometer, thousand
times more sensitive than the pre-
cision gaugemakers' apparatus. This
instrument measures length changes
as small as the billionth Of an inch
and is so far ahead Of practical uses
today that 1t may wait for years be-
fore industry needs or can use such
inconceivable delicacy and perfection
Of length measurement.
When men can measure the heat Of
the stars they are making truth
stranger than fiction. When they
harness the hurricane they are max
ing magic real. When they can steer
the mariner with beams of radio and
enable aviators to land safely in the
densest fog they are outdoing the
Arabian Nights" This is why the
National Bureau of Standards Is a
house Of wonders.
Copyright 1e34)