

ABSTRACTS 



Authors of scientific papers are requested to see that abstracts, preferably 

 prepared and signed by themselves, are forwarded promptly to the editors. 

 The abstracts should conform in length and general style to those appearing in 

 this issue. 



PHYSICS. — The specific heat of platinum at high temperatures. Wal- 

 ter P. White. Phys. Rev. 12: 436-441. December, 1918. 



The specific heat of platinum has been redetermined from 100° to 

 1300° with a precision estimated to be better than 0.3 per mille and 

 with very satisfactory agreement with the results of Gaede at 100° 

 and with those of Plato, Corbino, Magnus, and Fabaro at higher tem- 

 peratures. Most published results below 100° appear to be i per 

 cent or more too high. The atomic heat of platinum at constant vol- 

 ume is, from 100° up, above the value 5.96, indicated by Dulong and 

 Petit's law and by the accepted kinetic theories of the solid state, 

 and also increases regularly to 1300° and probably beyond that. 



W. P. W. 



PHYSICS. — Heat convection in air, and Newton's law of cooling. Wal- 

 ter P. White. Phys. Rev. 10: 743-755. December, 1917. 



In very narrow layers of air between vertical surfaces at different 

 temperatures the convection currents, in the main, flow up one side 

 and down the other, with eddyless (stream-line) motion. It follows 

 that these currents transport heat to or from the surfaces only when 

 they turn and flow horizontally, from which fact it follows, in turn, 

 that the convective heat transfer is independent of the height of the 

 surface. It is, according to the laws of eddyless flow, proportional to 

 the square of the temperature difference and to the cube of the dis- 

 tance between the surfaces. As the flow becomes more rapid {e. g., for 

 a 20° difference and a distance of i .2 cm.), turbulence enters, and the 

 above relations begin to change. The change is apparently gradual, 

 and the present results, as well as some obtained by other experimenters, 

 are rather negative as to the possibility of expressing the flow simply 



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