Evening star., 1954-09-24
200 Tough Problems
Put Up to inventors
Council Lists Needs
Of U. S. Armed Forces
By Thomos r. Henry

A challenge to American inventors to
set their brains at work on more than
200 national defense problems has been
issued by the National Inventors Coun-
Gil of the Commerce Department.
Some of the problems are in hitherto
untouched territory. For example:
Development Of a revolutionary new
method of transmitting intelligence
which does not depend on electrical i'm
pulses. electromagnetic waves or sound
waves.
Lightweight equipment, suitable for
general use, for translating ordinary
speech into writing, so that one might
dictate to a typewriter or intercept
radio and wire communications. All
approaches to date have indicated that
such an apparatus constructed with
present techniques would be so COM
plicated and bulky that it would have
little value. ..,
A death ray. capable Of killing at
500 yards, without use of excessive
power. Investigations to date indicate
that tremendous amounts Of power
would be required using present tech
niques and that a completely new ap-
proach is needed.
Wanted: Mobile Atmosphere.
A personal heating system that will
distribute heat over the human body
at SubZero temperatures, thus permit
ing persons to walk about, work with
the hands, drive in unheated vehicles
and sleep outside without shelter This
involves an electrically heated suit Of
some sort but the source of the heat
must be built into the garment. must
be reasonably light weight, and capable
of minimum of eight hours operation
without refueling. It must permit rapid
an emergency.
During the past IA years since the
council has acted as clearing house
for inventors it has examined more
than 100000 proposals and has referred
several thousand to the Army, Navy
and Air force as worthy Of further
consideration. Some Of these have re-
suited in enormous savings.
A device so sensitive that it meas
ures the extra amount of oxygen con-
sumed in raising the little finger now
is being used as an indicator of fatigue.
This instrument determines how
tiring it may be to operate given ma
chine and may lead to some radically
new designs of industrial equipment.
1t was designed at the research center
of the Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.
and is described in the industrial bull
letin of the Arthur D. Little Co.
For Measurement of Effort.
1t measures the difference between
the oxygen used when q worker is
sitting absolutely still and when he is
performing any task whatever. Re-
.duction of fatigue Of operators Is ex-
pected considerably to reduce industrial
accidents, the bulletin points out. The
research center is designed primarily
to find ways Of cutting down factory
casualties.
A major problem being attacked is
that of noise and the designing of ma
chinery that can be operated within
acceptable noise limits. Some ma
chinery, it has been determined, Is so
noisy that ordinary conversation is
impractical. AS result new worker
cannot be trained on the job. He must
be shown pictures of the machine he
will operate in another room, have its
operation explained, and then be put
on the line. If something goes wrong, q
man so trained is likely to let hundreds
of faulty pieces go by.
The sources of the noise made by all
sorts of machines is being investigated.
In many cases the racket can be elm
mated entirely without in any way
disturbing the efficiency of the mech
aniSm.