SECTION G.— ENGINEERING. 



THE CALL TO THE ENGINEER 

 AND SCIENTIST 



ADDRESS BY 



PROF. MILES WALKER, D.Sc, F.R.S., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



It is nineteen years since Gisbert Kapp in his address to this Section at 

 Birmingham reviewed the position of railway electrification. The par- 

 ticulars he gave related mainly to foreign railways, as it was mainly on 

 the Continent and in America that main lines had been provided with 

 electric locomotives. Few of those who listened to his address would 

 have guessed that in 1932 main line electrification in this country would 

 have extended as little as it has to-day. And yet the delay has been all 

 to the good. Had we hurriedly adopted some system which for the 

 moment appeared the most promising, it is probable that the whole of the 

 plant would have been old-fashioned to-day, and, in the light of recent 

 developments, would have had to be reconstructed. 



Electricity in 19 13 was such a big infant that there were many people 

 who laughed at the saying that it was still in its infancy ; and yet, when 

 we see the advancements that have been made since then, we are inclined 

 to think that the saying was true after all. The largest generators then 

 were rated at about 10,000 kw. ; now they are ten times as great. Electric 

 traction on main lines had then well begun ; now we find thousands of 

 miles of it. In those days electric light and household appliances were 

 luxuries for the middle classes ; now they are fast becoming the neces- 

 sities of the poor. Wireless telegraphy was the achievement of the 

 technician. Now it is the plaything of the schoolboy. Instead of a few 

 thousand receivers in the hands of experts, we have millions of sets in 

 the homes of the people. 



But what is more remarkable than the total advances made in two 

 decades is the speed of advance during the last few years. If we could 

 evaluate the importance of discoveries made from day to day, and plot the 

 values in a curve with time as abscissa, we should find that this curve 

 slopes more and more rapidly upwards, and makes us wonder whether it 

 can still go on with increasing steepness. If so, what will it bring us } 



