Evening star., 1937-12-08
SWIFT CHEMICAL
ANALYSIS SHOWN
Bureau of Standards Feat
Accomplished in Flash,
on Photo Plate.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

gold is in the head Of . pin.
There might be some-perhaps a
hundred-millionth part.
DR.. William F. Meggers has worked
for 20 years in development of the
miraculously swift and accurate
method of chemical analysis, by means
Of which he can answer such . ques-
ton almost as soon as it is asked.
Today it stands as one of the great
contributions of the Bureau Of STAN
dards to basic science.
Here is how DR.. Meggers does it,
as he demonstrated before a group Of
specially invited guests at the institu-
tions 30th birthday anniversary last
night:
Every one Of the % chemical ele-
tute all matter in the universe. emit
a different kind of light when heated
to the point where they are lumines-
cent. The light that comes from
white-hot iron, for example, is COM
posed of altogether different wave
lengths than the light that comes from
white-hot gold or tin. Extensive re-
search by DR.. Meggers and his asso-
ciates has demonstrated that not
single wave length in the light Of
one element is duplicated in the light
Of another element.
Recorded on Photographic Plate.
So all that's necessary is to put the
head of the pin in an electric spark
more than enough for DR.. Meggers'
purposes-and explode it" so that a
flash Of light is given out. This light
passes through a spectroscope and
then falls on a very sensitive proto-
graphic plate which records lines
specifically characteriNng the different
elements. The actual recording is
done in fraction of second. Then
DR.. Meggers matches these lines with
the spectra lines of the various ele-
ments.
The latest developments, Dr. Meg
gers explained, have come from out
side the Bureau of Standards and con-
sist Of devices for intensifying the light
and much more sensitive plates which
increase many fold the accuracy OF
estimate possible.
Industry Accepts Method
This system Is just beginning to be
adopted by industrial laboratories. 1t
not only was developed at the Bureau
Of Standards. but most OF the very
laborious pick-and-s shovel work has
been done there. This involved deter
mining with extreme accuracy the pre-
else spectra Of all the elements for
purposes of comparison.
They have literally "fingerprinted"
creation. The spectrum lines of an ele-
ment are more specific than the finger
prints of man, and once they are on
record it cannot hide anywhere.
There are men at the Bureau Of
Standards who spend a lot of their
time blowing soap bubbles. They de-
monstrated their technique last night
There is very direct connection, they
showed, between this rainy day pas
time of children and the way your
automobile starts on cold morning or
the safety Of an aviator flying above
the clouds.
motor runs because of the explo-
sion Of gases which push its pistons
up and down. The nature Of the ex-
plosion depends on the mixture" II
this mixture isn't right there will be
sputtering and knocking, sometimes
complete failure. The nature Of the
explosion is characterized by the way
the fame travels through the COM
bustion chamber.
So the bureau physicists use soap
bubbles for combustion chambers
They fill such a bubble with an ex-
plosive mixture and set it OF with an
electric spark. They can see what
happens. They can photograph the
explosion with movie camera speeded
up 100-fold. Then they can study
the individual photographs at random
so that they can tell just what is hap
pening at any stage
The Bureau of Standards, it was
demonstrated last night, is Americas
super piano tuner. Every day it
broadcasts a standard pitch, A. All
that is necessary to determine whether
your piano is in tune is to strike A key
while the standard pitch is coming
over the radio.
This would be funny world if the
average temperature was $40 degrees
below zero. Supposing life were pos
sible at such a temperature, we would
all be swimming around like fish in
an ocean Of liquid air. We would have
to be very careful not to snap our
fingers or they would break off. Smok-
ing would be strictly prohibited or we
would set the ocean aflre. The liquid
in which We lived would be $50 times
as dense as the atmosphere We now
breathe Some of the queer things that
liquid air does, including its kerosene
like propensity, were demonstrated last
night.
Another demonstration of color Wis
ion showed that seeing shouldn't be
believing DR.. Deane B. Judd made a
painting of girl change into a pic
ture of some animals merely by chang
ing the illumination. A woman, he
said, is better judge of what she sees
than a man. One woman out of a
thousand is partially color-blind. Four
or five men out of every hundred have
the same disability.