II4 



NATURE 



[September 22, 192 1 



sible to exist without the ' ration of scientists, ' meagre 

 as it is. 1 read in Nature in 1920 a notice on the 

 vo3age of Mr. Weils to Petrograd and his opinion 

 on the position of our men of science (Nature, 

 vol. lob, p. 352). He did not see much, as he 

 was ' personally conducted, ' and does not understand 

 Russian. He estimates the number of men of science 

 at four thousand; Nature expresses some astonish- 

 ment at this number — thinks there must be less, as 

 many have died. Well, there is here an official com- 

 mission, composed of Mr. Oldenburg and other 

 learned gentlemen, who decide whether an applicant 

 is a man of science or not. As it is often a question 

 of life and death, the decision is usually in favour of 

 the applicant, if certain formalities are fulfilled — if 

 he has printed some learned articles, or even simply 

 written one, etc. Professors are almost always in- 

 cluded if they teach in higher schools. There are now- 

 very many proletariat "higher institutes"; for 

 instance, a "Higher Institute of Anti-fire Technique" 

 and a '"Higher Institute of Plastic Arts"; the first 

 turns out firemen for fire brigades, the second — 

 dancers! "Professors" of these institutes are also 

 "scientists"! Even among the professors of old 

 high schools there are now some without .scientific 

 degrees called 'red professors"; for now it is decreed 

 that anybody can be a professor, just as anybody 

 who is sixteen years of age can be a student. If he is j 

 quite ignorant he will attend a " preparatory course," 

 but, like real students, will receive his ration and 

 salary (students do not pay anything now, but receive I 

 salaries). 



"Thus the question, ' What is a man of science? ' 

 is not so simple as it seems. The number of men of 

 science would certainly exceed the four thousand of 

 Mr. Wells if the Soviet of deputy workers and deputy 

 red soldiers did not happen to fix the number of 

 rations at two thousand. Of course, all this is very 

 detrimental to the interests of real scientific workers, 

 whose number, I should think, does not exceed 

 several hundred ; the more so as it is officially an- 

 nounced that scientific workers of England, France, 

 and the U.S.A. have formed committees to help us. 

 It would be a good thing if some representatives of 

 these committees could come and preside over the 

 distribution. Last year the Norwegian Government 

 sent us a lot of presents, but the precise amount 

 sent was carefully kept in the dark, so that we have 

 more than a suspicion that we received only a part of 

 the alms— and then only some coarser things, like 

 herrings and cod — and that the dainties were taken 

 bv other parties for whom they were not intended. 



"You see I write as a matter of course about 

 receiving alms ; we have long, ago lost all sense of 

 pride — beggars cannot be choosers — and we can only 

 thankfullv accept foreign help. As I express myself 

 easilv in English I could not resist the temptation to 

 give to you just a very small epitome of what is meant 

 by ' vivere ' for us, but there are many other not very 

 agreeable things which I cannot mention now. In 

 spite of them, the habits of twenty-five years cannot 

 be given up, and I still interest myself in the process 

 of chemistrv. . . . 



" I have read over what I have written on the sub- 

 ject of ' primo vivere, deinde philosophari,' and see 

 that there is enough unintentional humour about it— 

 but there is precious little humour in living it 

 through." 



The Disaster to the Airship R38. 



In the article on "The Disaster to the Airship 

 R38 " in Nature of September i, the author laments 

 that, in consequence of it, airship development is to 



NO. 2708, VOL. 108] 



be abandoned by our Government, and airship design 

 is referred to as being a matter of experience and guess- 

 ing. In face of the general tenor of the article, it 

 may be of interest to direct attention to six letters 

 published in Engineering in November and Decem- 

 ber, 1901, which 1 wrote in a discussion of the tor- 

 pedo-boat destroyer Cobra. Those letters are as 

 applicable to the R38 as to the Cobra. 



Some eminent scientific men then denied the pos- 

 sibility of the disaster to the Cobra being due to 

 gyroscopic action of the propeller and engines ; and 

 the first of my letters was written merely to insist 

 on the existence of such action, though I declared 

 that I could not consider it sufficient to account for 

 such an accident. The course of the discussion, how- 

 ever, led me to declare it to hav? been the sole cause 

 of the disaster. 



The important point is that all then existing 

 destroyers had engines fitted into them after the ship 

 had been built. I pointed out that such engines 

 should be built with the bearings as an intrinsic 

 part of the engines and extending the full length and 

 breadth of the ship, and also strong enough to resist 

 any force that could be exerted by the engines. I 

 considered that a vessel and engines so constructed 

 would not only be safer, but might also be lighter 

 than one dependent on heavy plates and girders for 

 strength to stand the stresses created by pitching and 

 rolling. 



By giving the airship's engines such bearings as 

 above suggested it may be made safe against any 

 such accident as that which has wrecked the R38. 



The old destroyers offered, perhaps, more scoi>e for 

 saving weight than the airship, but by giving such 

 bearings to the engines as above suggested at least 

 three-fourths of the present weight of girders might 

 be dispensed with. Wm. Leighton Jordan. 



Roval Societies Club, September 3. 



Before dealing with the main contention of Dr. 

 W. Leighton Jordan's remarks on the loss of R38, 

 it is desirable to refer to the opening paragraph and 

 to correct the impression that, "in consequence of it, 

 airship development is to be abandoned by our 

 Government." The policy of the Air Ministry was 

 determined and announced many months before the 

 accident, and therefore cannot have been influenced 

 by the failure of R38. The campaign for economy 

 in the public service, combined with a lack of 

 enthusiasm on the part of the Air Council, is much 

 more likely to be the explanation- of the decision to 

 abandon airships. 



Dr. Jordan appears to attach much importance to 

 gyroscopic action in relation to the breaking of R38. 

 Such action is called into plav when the airship turns, 

 and, as is well known, the magnitude of the couple 

 is proportional to the rate of turning of the ship. 

 There is little difficulty in estimating the magnitudes 

 of the forces to be resisted, and, since an airship turns 

 slowly, in seeing that they are relatively small. It 

 is not usual for engineering structures to fail against 

 well known loads, and there is no reason to suppose 

 that R38 is an exception. It is rather to those un- 

 known Effects supposed to be covered by a " factor of 

 safety" that attention is drawn by failure. The 

 less the scientific and technical preparation for con- 

 struction, the greater the call on the allowance for 

 ignorance. The scientific objection to full-scale tests 

 to destruction is not to their effectiveness, but to 

 their cost in life and material ; they are, in fact, the 

 result of false economv. 



The Writer of the Article. 



