NA TURE 



121 



SATURDAY, JULY 2S, 1923. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



By Sir 



Large Scale Research in Abstract Science 



R. T. Glazebrook, K.C.B., F.R.S. . 

 An Epitome of Antarctic Adventure. By F. Debenham 

 The Physics of the X-Rays. By Dr. G. W. C. Kaye 



Elementary Zoology 



Arabia and Arab Alliances. By Sir T. H. Holdich, 



K.C.M.G 



Our Bookshelf 128 



Letters to the Editor : — 



The Quantum in Atomic Astronomy.— Sir Oliver 



Lodge, F.R.S 



The Resolving Power of Microscopes on Test-plates 

 for Microscopic Objectives. {With Diagrams.) — 



A. Mallock, F.R.S 



The Fluorescence of certain Lower Plants. — Prof. 



Francis E. Lloyd 



Dr. Kammerer's Lecture to the Linnean Society. — 

 J. T. Cunningham ...... 



The British Journal of Experimental Biology. — Dr. 

 F. A. E. Crew, Prof. W. J. Dakin, and Others 

 An Einstein Paradox. — J. T. Combridge 

 Multiple Temperature Incubator. — C. B. Williams 

 Phosphorescence caused by Active Nitrogen. — Dr. 



H. Krepelka . 



The Cryogenic Laboratory of the University of 

 Toronto. {Illustrated.) By Prof. J. C. McLennan, 



F.R.S 



Rickets in Vienna . 



Current Topics and Events 



Our Astronomical Column 



Research Items 



Problems of Fundamental Astronomy. 



de Sitter 



Night Temperature on Mt. Etna. By L. C. W. B 

 The School of Hygiene in London . 

 University and Educational Intelligence . 

 Societies and Academies ..... 

 Official Publications Received .... 

 Recent Scientific and Technical Books . . Supp 



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Large Scale Research in Abstract Science. 



SEVERAL recent lectures and addresses have given 

 prominence to the interconnexion between 

 abstract science and industry and the marked influence 

 of science on industrial progress. Among these may 

 be mentioned two addresses by Sir J. J. Thomson, 

 the first at the opening of the new laboratories of the 

 General Electric Company at Wembley and the second 

 from the chair as president of the Institute of Physics, 

 the James Forest lecture of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers, and, most recent of all, the fourteenth 

 Kelvin lecture of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 by Prof. J. A. Fleming. 



Prof. Fleming deals with problems in telephony, 

 solved and unsolved, and illustrates in a remarkable 

 way and with great knowledge and insight the con- 

 sequences of scientific inquiry in the past, and the need 

 for further researches in the future. Graham Bell 

 died last year ; Kelvin in 1876 had returned from the 

 American Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia to 

 take the chair of Section A of the British Association 

 at Glasgow, full of the invention of the telephone, 

 which he described in his own inimitable manner, and 

 Prof. Fleming, who forty-six years ago had been one 

 of his audience at Glasgow, writes : 



" In the year, therefore, following that of the 

 decease of the illustrious inventor of the speaking 

 telephone it is perhaps appropriate that the Kelvin 

 Lecture should direct attention to some of the problems 

 of telephony which have been solved or which remain 

 unsolved." 



The solved problems are sufficiently wonderful ; 

 the amplitude of the air vibrations in a just audible 

 sound varies from about 10 "^ cm. at a frequency 

 of (say) 256 to rather more than 10 "^^ cm. at the 

 highest audible frequencies, and minute motions such 

 as these are impressed on the telephone diaphragm, 

 translated into the variations of an electric current, 

 transmitted to a distance, there amplified, communi- 

 cated to the receiver, and from it to the observer's ear. 

 Fleming's Kelvin lecture is a fascinating story of the 

 many steps by which this has been achieved, showing 

 how by degrees workers in various lands have each 

 contributed their quota to the advance and made 

 speech possible over 2000 or perhaps 3000 miles by 

 aerial lines, 500 miles by underground, and 200 miles 

 by submarine cables. 



This progress rests on the theoretical investigation 

 by Heaviside of the conditions for undistorted trans- 

 mission, the application of this work, with successive 

 improvements, by Pupin and Krarup and others to 

 the loading of cables and the advances available 

 by the use of the thermionic valve as an amplifier 



NO. 2804, VOL. I 12] 



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