Evening star., 1934-09-10
|SAVANTS DISCOVER
SUPER ARC LIGHT
More Brilliant Than Sun,
U. S. Chemical Society
Hears at Meeting.
BY HOWARD w. BLAKESLEE,
Associated Press Science Editor.

| sASSOCldIcd EA6So oSlSLSS 1SOAbOA.
CLEVELAND, September lO-Arc
! lights which will burn more brightly
than the sun, or about twice as bril-
liant as anything yet made on earth,
were forecast to the American Chem
ical Society today.
The prediction was based on the
+, first accurate measurement of the
| temperature of the carbon arc and
proof that it is the hottest thing on
earth. Its temperature is 1864 de-
!, grees above zero, Fahrenheit.
The report was made by N. K.
CLANCY, v. c. Hamister and S. w.
Glass of the National Carbon Co.,
Cleveland.
They found first that in the
crater" of burning carbon arc a
volcanic mist forms, a fog made of
pure carbon vapor. Previously scien-
! fists had thought this mist a liquid
form of carbon.
The Clevelanders said their work
shows that no liquid form of carbon
can exist at atmospheric pressures, for
the carbon passes directly from glow
ing solid into vapor. 1t doesn't melt.
New War Gas Discussed.
This probably explains why dia-
mondS are so impossible for man to
make, for diamonds are believed to
come from a liquid form of carbon.
Under the right conditions. and
! with a little further chemical aid, this
arc can be made to burn with an in
trinsic brilliancy slightly greater than
that of the sum-" the report said.
1 The war powers of a new American
gas that explodes at the heat of a
hand, or a foreign chlorine explosive
that detonates at the touch of
| feather and all the runored string Of
new poison gases and germs were dis
cussed informally today.
The new American gas was an
nounced last night by DR.. George H.
Cady of Clifton, N j. He said it Is
an entirely new chemical substance.
Its only name at present is 'NO3F,"
which means it is combination Of
nitrogen, oxygen and fluorine.
Discovered by Accident.
During such a study at the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology last
| May, DR.. Cady was holding a small
flask of the new mixture. The heat
of his hand exploded it, and this was
the first intimation of its existence
and destructive powers. Commercial
ly he said it is promising, and prob
ably can be made cheaply. 1t appears
also to have military possibilities II 1t
can be controlled.
"a blanket of gas over the enemy's
trenches" he said, would be destruc-
tive to life and if the concentration
were high enough explosion could be
easily produced"
The father" explosive goes by the
name of nitrogen chloride. Recently
it was reported that German chemists
had succeeded in "stabilizing" it in
the form of a liquid. 1t was said
that if few drops were poured on a
pavement, and a body of troops
marched down that street, they, the
adjoining buildings and everything
else within 100 yards would be
blown up.
| Not New to Chemists.
| To the chemists here, however, this
explosive is nothing new. They say
that when it is dried in thin fakes
1t may be exploded by touching it
with feather.
| But it lacks the energy required for
a military explosive. 1t has been
tried, they say, as a detonator for
T. N. T.. and it failed.
Another new war agent, poison
gas called nitroSocamphor is said to
be valuable because now that camphor
can be made synthetically, along with
the nitrogen, any nation may count
on an unlimited supply.
DR.. Harrison E. Howe, editor of
Industrial and Engineering Chemistry,
and an authority on gases, said that
several reports of new and horrible
/ foreign gases have been traced with
| out finding evidence to support the
| claims,