CHAPTER XVI 



WHERE QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED 

 Sir Joseph Petavel and the National Physical Laboratory 



IT is surprising how little is commonly known about 

 quite familiar things. How great a strain will any 

 given piece of steel stand without breaking ? Why do 

 ships roll in a heavy sea ? What happens to an aeroplane 

 if it meets a sudden gust of wind blowing at one hundred 

 miles an hour ? What sort of road surface wears longest ? 

 When the technical advisers in any industry or Govern- 

 ment Department have conundrums such as these to solve 

 they take them to Teddington, in Middlesex, to the home 

 of the scientific wizards who are at work each day from 

 9.30 to 5 p.m., in the group of buildings known as the 

 National Physical Laboratory. 



So many apparently unanswerable questions has the 

 Laboratory answered that over the entrance there might 

 well appear the legend " We can answer it." They do 

 other things too, as well as answer questions. If you 

 want to measure with absolute precision, to a millionth 

 part of an inch, you must go to Teddington. Or perhaps 

 you have a piece of metal which you want to have heated 

 up to one thousand six hundred degrees Centigrade — 

 almost the highest temperature attainable. These scien- 

 tists can do it for you. Or perhaps, again, you would like 

 to see an electric spark of a million volts ? You can see 

 one at the National Physical Laboratory. 



This building, or rather group of buildings — for the 

 Laboratory to-day consists of ten large buildings, with 

 other smaller units, covering altogether twenty-three 

 acres of ground — is the property of the State. 



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