912 



Popular Science Monthly 



Are Metals Alive? 



CHANGES in hardness, strength or 

 elasticity in certain metals may be 

 due to conditions analogous to disease in 

 organic tissues, according to some metal- 

 lurgists. This theory of the disease of 

 metals has been so far accepted in Ger- 

 many that the Imperial Navy Yard at 

 Wilhelmshafen sends metals regularly 

 to "the autopsy room and dissecting 

 tables" of Professor Heyn, a leader in 

 this kind of work. This new conception 

 of metals is due to the studies made some 

 years ago by Professor Jagadis Chunder 

 Bose, an East Indian physicist of Presi- 

 dency College, Calcutta, who proved ex- 

 perimentally that it is scientifically 

 wrong to divide matter into "living" and 

 "dead." He demonstrated that the phe- 

 nomena which we commonly associate 

 with lif eshould also beassociated with non- 

 living metals, books, paper and the like. 



It seems as if metallurgy will create 

 a new and vastly important branch for 

 itself — the branch of producing inocu- 

 lating material for metals, which shall 

 change their temper and form swiftly 

 instead of waiting for the slow processes 

 of forging and tempering that obtain 

 to-day. 



Heyn has been studying the modifica- 

 tions in iron under all grades of temper- 

 ature, and he holds that the metal 

 passes through various stages of disease 

 that produce structural changes just as 



the cells of plants and animals change in 

 form, size and position. He heats 

 copper in order to find why that metal 

 suffers from over-heating, and he con- 

 cludes that it becomes poisoned with 

 copper protoxid, which so sickens it that 

 its structure changes and partially 

 breaks down. 



The metallurgists have joined the 

 chemists in erasing the line which divides 

 all substances into organic and inorganic 

 — just as the line between animal and 

 plant life has ceased to exist. The 

 German metallurgists have come to 

 speak as a matter of course of the life 

 that unfolds itself in steel under various 

 temperatures that are applied to it in 

 working it. Poison steel with hydrogen 

 or hydrogenous matter and you so 

 sicken it that it gets into a condition 

 where it is as brittle as if it had been 

 ruined in tempering. 



Pure glycerin cannot be frozen by ordi- 

 nary means, even at twenty degrees be- 

 low zero. But, introduce a bit of glycerin 

 that has already been frozen and the rest 

 begins to congeal. This process is nothing 

 more nor less than inoculating an inor- 

 ganic substance with crystals in order to 

 breed in it the condition of crystallization. 



Bredig, a German investigator, found 

 the point of infection in the crumbling 

 tin roof of the Council House at Rothen- 

 burg. The roof suffered from a disease, 

 now known as tin pest. 



Answers to Sam Loyd's April Puzzles 



Answer to " Off His Beat " 



The mathematical cop says that his con- 

 versation with the Roundsman occured at 

 9:36 A. M., because 1/4 of the time from 

 midnight would be 2 hours and 24 minutes, 

 which added to 1/2 the time until midnight, 

 7 hours and 12 minutes, equals 9 hours and 

 36 minutes. Had the Roundsman not 

 remarked it was morning, 7:12 P. M. would 

 have been an equally correct answer. 



Solution of "At the Auto Races " 



The race of the three autos might have 

 terminated in 26 varied results, as follows: 



Assuming that all three finished six ways, 

 viz: A, B, C; A, C, B; B, A, C; B, C, A; 

 C, A, B; C, B, A. Then A, B, C in a dead 

 heat or A, B; A, C or B, C in a dead heat for 

 the first place. Then again, A first with B, C, 

 in a dead heat for second or B first with A, C, 

 second or C first with A, B, second. Then 

 there are various results in which one or 



more of the cars fail to finish. All three 

 might fail to finish. Then there are nine 

 different results in which one car failed and 

 with two failing to finish there are three ways. 



Answer to "^Cheese and Crackers " 



Let us call the weight of the cheese X, and 

 the balance board would be 1/2 X. Four-fifths 

 of the board, and therefore, 4/5 of its weight 

 would be on one side of the balance point. 

 Let us assume that the beam was 5 feet in 

 length. Then on the cracker side, at the 

 point 2 feet from the fulcrum (the average 

 distance), would be a weight pressure of 2/5 

 X pounds. This being equivalent to a 1/5 X 

 pounds pressure at the extreme end. On the 

 cheese end of the beam would be a pressure of 

 I 1/20 X pounds. This to balance would 

 require a pressure of 21/80 X pounds at the 

 end of the long arm. Since a pressure of 

 16/80 X already existed, the difference to 

 be made up in crackers would be 5/80 X. 



