Industrial Research 



247 



unusual effects produced at extremely high pressures, 

 it is anticipated that such investigations will lead to 

 many applications in industry. 



Estreme Temperatures 



Advances in experimental teclmiqucs of all Ivinds 

 sooner or later become useful in industry. It is 

 probable, therefore, that the extremes of temperatures 

 recently attained in the laboratory will find many 

 industrial uses. For instance, recent methods of cooling 

 by using a magnetic field have led to the production of 

 temperatures oidj' a small fraction of a degree above 

 the absolute zero. At these temperatures the electrical 

 resistance of many materials drops to zero so that a 

 current started in a loop of wire will continue for many 

 days without any supply of energy. With such tem- 

 peratures all gases can be liquefied. One type of liquid 

 helium exhibits a very unusual property of having 

 almost zero viscosity; this means that it will flow 

 through tubes under a very small pressure gradient. 



At the other end of the temperature scale progress 

 has also been made, for instance, in the development of 

 blocks to stand the liigh temperatures that occur in a 

 glass-melting tank. In the laboratory it has been 

 possible to achieve temperatures up to 20,000° for 

 short-tune intervals by exploding fine wires. While 

 these high temperatures have not yet become of com- 

 mercial importance, they offer considerable possibility 

 for the future. 



Fundamental Explorations Provide 

 the Bases of Future Industries 



Physics is outstandmgly a practical science and there 

 is very little that the physicist discovers that does not 

 eventually come into practical use. The person who 

 applies the discoveries of the physicist is usually an 

 engineer. \Miile the engineer is making the application, 

 the individual for whom the name physicist is reserved 

 is busy discovering new phenomena which will probably 

 be applied by the next generation of engineers. 



Thus to learn what kind of physics will be applied in 

 the futui'e one can hardly do better than to observe 

 the fundamental discoveries now being made in the 

 pure research laboritories in the imiversities, in indus- 

 try, and in the large governmental departments. 



Nuclear Physics 



In the universities it is quite apparent that much of 

 the pure research is concerned with the atom. Many 

 physicists are engaged in trying to understand the 

 structure of the atomic nucleus. Mention has already 

 been made of the artificial radioactive elements pi'o- 

 duced as a byproduct of these investigations, and which 

 are so useful as tracers. Besides radioactive materi- 

 als it has also been possible to produce gold, silver. 



helium, and other stable elements by the transmutation 

 of less valuable materials. Although at present it 

 does not seem likely that these processes will develop 

 into practical sources of materials in quantity, the 

 investigations will pay for th<>msolves many times in 

 the uses that have already been mentioned. Other 

 valuable ai)i)lications are very likely to follow. 



There is still another commercial possibility which 

 may arise from the study of atomic nuchu. It has 

 been discovered recently that when uranium is bom- 

 barded with either slow-moving or very fast-moving 

 neutrons (atomic particles with no charge), elements 

 are produced which have approximately half the atomic 

 weight of the uranium and at the same time a new 

 batch of neutrons is liberated. The new elements arc 

 emitted at tremendously high speeds, and thus have a 

 large amount of energy which can be transformed into 

 heat. This experiment immediately suggests that if 



Figure 70. — Tlie ".Mom Smasher,' W ' ; l , . i 

 Lal)oratory, East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 



search 



