The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-09-18
Atomic POUer WiH Attain Maturity m Ten Years


 ED. NOTE: Following is the second of . series on atomic en- ergy.
 By ROBERT l.. FREY
 nlted Press stan Correspondentl New York, Sept. le-CUP)-The past performances of inventors who have harnessed basic sources of en- ergy-steam, electricity and oil-in. dicate that the dawn of the atomic age in everyday life Is due about January, 195c.
 Already it has been announced that construction soon will begin Of a railroad engine to be driven by atomic energy. Ralph Lucas, chief engineer of the United States 1n- oustrtal Research and Development %, said the energy will be utilized through special type of turbine.
 Atomic, or more accurately nu- clear energy, now is in the stage that steam energy was before the invention of the steam engine, elec- tricity before the dynamo, oil before the internal combustion engine. We need an atomic engine to transform this new form of energy into power that can be controlled to run ma chimes.
 A look at the record shows that the time elapsed between the tap- ping of new source of energy and invention of the means of harness ing 1t has decreased by half with each new power-discovery.
 Steam Engine
 The development of the steam en- zine up to 1701 when James Watt found, Q way to make 1t turn TO. tary shaft and thus run machinery covered about 100 years. As every schoolboy knows, the industrial rev- olution which followed changed civilization.
 Tn the case of electricity, 50 years elapsed between Michael Faraday's discovery in 1881 that electricity could be generated from magnetism and the invention of the modern type of dynamo.
 Only 26 years passed between the discovery of oil in western PennSyl- vania and che invention of the first high-Speed internal combustion en- zine that was to make the automo. pile and, eventually, the airplane possible.
 First Atom Bomb
 The secreta storehouse of energy On the atom finally was opened last July when Q group of scientists watched the first atom bomb ex. plodc over . New Mexican desert.
 The scale of diminishing periods between the discovery of an en. ergy and the invention of It's engine indicates that we may expect an. other halving of that time, Q 12 and one-half year period of exper- amentation. The atomic age on this form chart should dawn about January, 1o6e.
 Specialists in the field casting their own cautious predictions are in more or less general agreement that another decade or so will see nuclear energy peacefully perform ing some of mans bidding.
 Professor II. D. Smyth, chairman Ok t1S uopeEtuASAAb VI PhtyOASo aV Princeton, said in his ofiicial report on the atomic bomb that there IS 6 good probability that nuclear power for special purposes could be developed within 10 years.
 pr. Q. Guy Suits, vice president and director of the research labora- tory ct the General Electric com. pany, directed research on the ap. paratus used in the production Of U236. He made this considered es- timate on the extent to which atomic energy will reshape our lives in the years just ahead:
 Confident
 "I feel quite confident" pr. Suits told the United Press, that the ape plicationS of nuclear energy prob.