November 24, 1923] 



NA TURE 



767 



Current Topic 



The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stock- 

 holm, has awarded the Nobel prize for physics for 

 1923 to Dr. R. A. Millikan, director of the Norman 

 Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California 

 Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and the Nobel 

 prize for chemistry' for 1923 to Prof. F. Pregl, pro- 

 fessor of applied medical chemistry in the medical 

 faculty of the Karl Franzens University, Graz, 

 Austria. Dr. Millikan is best known for his work 

 on the determination of the absolute value of the 

 charge of the electron. Before his experiments 

 various measures had been made of this, by con- 

 densing a cloud on free electrons in a gas and observ- 

 ing how the cloud behaved. Millikan found that 

 it was possible to watch the single drops, and thus 

 discovered many inaccuracies to which the earlier 

 work was subject, and this enabled him to modify 

 it into a method of precision. In his final arrange- 

 ment, a small drop of oil or mercury was watched 

 in a microscope as it slowly fell under gravity or, 

 acquiring a charge, rose in an electric field. In this 

 way he could observe directly the atomic nature. 

 of electricity ; for if the speed of the drop ever 

 changed it would always change by a discrete amount 

 In the course of these experiments he worked out 

 the problem of the motion of a sphere in a viscous 

 fluid, and found under what conditions Stokes's law 

 is verified ; more recently he has made his work 

 throw light on the nature of the collision of a gas 

 molecule with a solid or liquid surface. It is a 

 fairly safe prediction that it will be long before 

 methods are devised which will give more accurate 

 values than Millikan 's for the electronic charge and 

 the associated constants. Only second in importance 

 is his very accurate determination of the quantum 

 by means of the photoelectric effect. His work 

 not only completely verified the Einstein theory, 

 but also showed that the " limiting potential " of 

 that theory is identical with the ordinary contact 

 potential. Since then Dr. Millikan has added a great 

 deal to our knowledge of the spectrum in the region 

 of very short waves. 



The London School of Tropical Medicine, co- 

 operating with the New Zealand Government, has just 

 sent an expedition to Samoa to study the depopula- 

 tion of the Pacific from the medical point of view. 

 The expedition is led by Dr. Patrick Buxton, and will 

 probably be in Samoa about two years. It is proposed 

 to select a small island and try to exterminate Aedes 

 variegatus {psettdo sentellaris) , the particular mosquito 

 which carries filariasis : a majority of the natives are 

 infected with this disease. This large-scale experi- 

 ment should afford information about costs and 

 methods, and will be of value in many parts of the 

 world. An investigation of all biting insects will be 

 made, and the party is equipped to study the problems 

 of ventilation and temperature in various types of 

 house. An effort will be made to collect insects in 

 general, even those of no economic importance, 

 because it is presumed that a peculiar fauna still 

 exists in the virgin forests which cover the centres of 

 the islands, and that this fauna is in danger of being 



NO. 2821, VOL. I 12] 



s and Events, 

 exterminated by enemies introduced from other 

 islands. 



With the December issue the monthly publication 

 of the meteorological ocean charts ceases. The 

 information supplied on the back of these charts will 

 in future appear in a monthly magazine entitled the 

 Marine Observer which will be on sale by the Stationery 

 Office. The magazine will be supplied free to the 

 commanders of all ships on the list of regular observers 

 to the Meteorological Office. The face of the charts 

 for each month of the year, with information which is 

 of a permanent nature, have been printed in limited 

 numbers, and one set will, we understand, be supplied, 

 according to its trade, to each ship on the list of 

 regular observers, on request being made by the 

 commander. These charts of frequencies and normals 

 of the North Atlantic or East Indian Seas for each 

 month of the year may be purchased at one shilling 

 each from the Admiralty chart agents. The December 

 issue of the East Indian chart contains a useful index 

 to the information published on the back of the 

 charts from 1906 onwards. 



The many friends of Sir Arthur Schuster will learn 

 with much regret that a few days ago he met with an 

 accident which may lead to the loss of sight of one of 

 his eyes. It appears that he was accidentally struck 

 by a golf-club while standing near a lady player, the 

 result being that his glasses were broken and a piece 

 of glass entered one of his eyes. 



The selection committee of the Harrison Memorial 

 prize, which, in accordance with the trust deed, 

 consists of the presidents of the Chemical Society, 

 the Institute of Chemistry, the Society of Chemical 

 Industry, and the Pharmaceutical Society, will meet 

 shortly to consider the first award of the Harrison 

 Memorial prize. The prize, of the value of about 

 150/., is to be awarded to the chemist of either sex, 

 being a natural born British subject and not at the 

 time over thirty years of age, who, in the opinion 

 of the selection committee, during the previous five 

 years has conducted the most meritorious and promis- 

 ing original investigations in any branch of pure or 

 applied chemistry and published the results of those 

 investigations in a scientific periodical or periodicals. 

 Provided that in the opinion of the selection com- 

 mittee there is a candidate of sufficient distinction 

 to warrant an award of the prize, the first award is 

 to be made in December next. The selection com- 

 mittee is prepared to receive applications, nomina- 

 tions, or information as to candidates eligible for 

 the prize, which must be addressed to the president 

 of the Chemical Society, and should reach Burlington 

 House, Piccadilly, London, W.i, before December 10. 



On November 14, Prof. R. A. Peters delivered his 

 inaugural lecture as Whitley professor of biochemistry 

 in the University of Oxford. Speaking of the inter- 

 change of teachers between Oxford and Cambridge, 

 which he thought was to the advantage of both 

 Universities, he directed attention to the fact that 

 Oxford had inclined to the synthetic and Cambridge 

 to the analytic aspect of biochemistry. The " steam- 



