June 2, 192 1] 



NATURE 



439 



Administration of Scientific Work. 



LORD HALDANE presided at a meeting of the 

 National Union of Scientific Workers held at 

 University College, London, on May 30, at which 

 Prof. L. Bairstow gave an address on " The Adminis- 

 tration of Scientific Work." 



Lord Haldane said that the occasion was most in- 

 teresting to him, as he was presiding over a meeting 

 of what bore a resemblance to a trade union. We 

 were apt to forget that an organisation must have 

 another purpose than merely the promotion of the 

 interest of the individuals who belong to it. An 

 organisation sometimes helped to keep standards 

 high and shield the right, and that was one 

 of the dominant aims of the National Union of 

 Scientific Workers. The problem of how science 

 and administration were to be related was a 

 difficult one. Scientific men were often impatient of 

 administration and the Treasury, but though these 

 institutions hindered imaginative enterprise, he was 

 not altogether sure the case was against them. Con- 

 sidering the expenditure now afforded on scientific re- 

 search, we had little cause to lament the present 

 period. The highest science did not allow itself to be 

 organised, but it did not follow that for this reason 

 there was to be no limit placed on expenditure. 



Prof. Bairstow avowed as his ideal world one which 

 was so administered as to ensure remuneration ade- 

 quate for, work, and thus secure in great abundance 

 that desirable product, the work of the worker. Though 

 most people would subscribe to that idea, it was the 

 failure to work it out effectively that was responsible 

 for most of our troubles. We lived in an age of 

 "brain-waves," of disproportionate rewards for acci- 

 dental discoveries, and the union was strongly opposed 



to such rewards. Scientific research was the founda- 

 tion of progress ; stop it, and industry would stagnate 

 on the scientific side. Scientific ability should not be 

 used up in applied research, which under existing con- 

 ditions afforded more opportunities to the young and 

 ambitious scientific worker than research at a univer- 

 sity. University workers were under the perpetual 

 shadow of financial anxieties^ and could not, therefore, 

 give their best work to instruction and research. The 

 root of the problem was the resistance of the adminis- 

 trator to ,the idea of co-operation with the worker. 

 Prof. Bairstow illustrated this point by reference to the 

 programme for aeroplane construction prescribed in 

 19 1 7 for the following year. Specifications for a num- 

 ber of types of machine were laid down without refer- 

 ence to the assistance of the technical personnel of 

 the Air Board or of the aeronautical industry, with the 

 result that manufacturers were unable to accept con- 

 tracts on the basis of the specifications. The effect of 

 this action was to denude the Department of its best 

 technical men the moment the armistice was signed. 



In proposing a vote of thanks to Prof. Bairstow, 

 Sir Frank Baines congratulated him on the modera- 

 tion he had shown, though he was convinced that 

 under his reserve there was evidence of indignation 

 against the position in which the scientific worker was 

 placed to-day. 



Dr. George Senter, in thanking Lord Haldane, ven- 

 tured the opinion that only a short time would elapse 

 before the whole nation would realise what scientific 

 men realised already, the great value of the work he 

 had done as the head of two Government Depart- 

 ments — work that was carried out in the true scientific 

 spirit. 



New Technical Applications 



ON May 26 Messrs. A. Johnsen and K. Rahbek, 

 two Danish engineers, gave a most interesting 

 demonstration to the Institution of Electrical En- 

 gineers of new electrostatic microphones, telegraphic 

 relays, etc., based on a little-known electrical pheno- 

 menon. If a smooth plate of brass is placed on a 

 smoothly polished slab of lithographic stone about i in. 

 in thickness resting on a conductor, and a potential 

 difference of 400 volts is applied between the metal 

 plate and the conductor, a strong attraction will 

 be developed between the plate and the stone. Messrs. j 

 Johnsen and Rahbek demonstrated that the attrac- 

 tion between a metal disc about 2 in. in diameter ' 

 and the stone was greater than i kg., although the 

 current flowing was only a few micro-amperes. Pro- 

 vided the disc is in contact with the stone and the 

 microscopic current is flowing, it lifts the stone as a 

 magnet lifts its keeper. But when the current is \ 

 broken the attractive force vanishes. The stone is a | 

 semi-conductor, but the voltage drop across the stone is 

 verv small compared with the voltage drop due to the 

 resistance of the film between the brass plate and the 

 stone. The force, therefore, is due to electrostatic | 

 attraction, which for a plate condenser varies inversely j 

 as the square of the distance between the plates. _ j 

 This phenomenon has been utilised by the authors in | 

 the development of apparatus which will prove of great 

 value in electrotechnics. Lithographic stone, slate, 

 limestone, agate, flint, and many other semi-conduc- : 

 tors can be used to show the electrostatic attraction. ! 

 If the semi-conductor be rotating and a metal band i 

 slides on it, the friction between them will vary largely 

 with the slightest variation of the microscopic current | 

 between them. As very appreciable mechanical forces j 

 are called into play, it is possible to utilise them in 



NO. 2692, VOL. 107] ' 



of an Electrostatic Principle. 



technical applications. In radio-telegraphy, for in- 

 stance, it is useful as a thermionic recorder, the cur- 

 rent from the ordinary small valves being amplv 

 sufficient to operate it at a speed of several hundred 

 words per minute provided that at least 100 volts be 

 used for the valves. Excellent records obtained in 

 Copenhagen were shown of the messages sent out 

 frorn the Eiffel Tower. As the recorder is free from 

 self-induction, there is no practical limit to the speed 

 at which records can be taken. If the metal band 

 be connected to a sound-producing diaphragm and 

 telephonic currents pass between it and the rotating 

 semi-conductor, an extraordinarily loud-speaking tele- 

 phone can be obtained. Using the body of a violin 

 as the diaphragm, it was shown that the sounds 

 produced by a violin played at a distance could be per- 

 fectlv reproduced in the lecture theatre. Ordinary 

 speech also was excellently reproduced and could be 

 heard all over the room. 



In connection with their inventions it is interesting 

 to recall that Edison's first loud-speaking telephone 

 depended for its action on electrostatic attraction. A 

 chalk cylinder was rotated and a metallic spring 

 pressed against it, a current passing between them. 

 Sir William Barrett described this instrument to the 

 Royal Dublin Society on January iq, 1880, and a sum- 

 marv of his lecture was given in Nature (March 18, 

 1880, vol. xxi., p. 483). The electrostatic theory, how- 

 ever, was not then favoured. In 1905 Mr. Rollo Apple- 

 yard in a paper to the Physical Society described the 

 adhesion which occurs between a metal plate and a di- 

 electric when a very minute current passes between 

 them. Electricians also have attributed to the effects 

 of electrostatic attraction the alteration in the insula- 

 tion resistance of paper condensers as the voltage varies. 



