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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 853 



what I may call spots particularly vulner- 

 able to research. For example, the efS- 

 ciency of steam boilers, based upon the heat 

 energy of the coal used and the efficiency 

 of the engine using the steam, are continu- 

 ally being raised. We may expect, until 

 the maximum calculable efficiency is 

 reached, that this advance will continue. 

 The reason is not far to seek. It is a vul- 

 nerable spot. Improvement is possible. A 

 small increase in efficiency of a power 

 plant is an ever-continuing profit. Great 

 numbers of steam power plants exist and 

 so inventors are influenced by the fact that 

 new improvements may result in enormous 

 total economies. Every rule of the game 

 encourages them. I can make this clearer 

 by illustrations. 



Artificial light is still produced at 

 frightfully poor efficiency. Electric light 

 from incandescent lamps has been greatly 

 improved in this respect, but there is still 

 room for greater economies. It is still a 

 vulnerable spot. 



In the case of iron used in transformers, 

 we have another such vulnerable spot. A 

 transformer is practically a mass of sheet 

 iron, wound about with copper wire. The 

 current must be carried around the iron a 

 certain number of times and the copper is 

 chosen because it does the work most eco- 

 nomically. No more suitable material than 

 copper seems immediately probable, nor is 

 there any very promising way of increasing 

 its efficiency, but in the iron about which it 

 is wound there is a vulnerable spot. The 

 size of the iron about which the copper is 

 wound may possibly be still much further 

 reducible by improvements in its quality. 

 In other words, we do not yet know what 

 determines the magnetic permeability or 

 the hysteresis of the iron, and yet we do 

 know that it has been greatly improved in 

 the past few years and that it can still be 

 greatly improved. 



Let us make this vulnerable point a little 

 clearer by considering the conditions here 

 in Boston. I assume there are approxi- 

 mately 50,000 kw. of alternating current 

 energy used here. Nearly all of this is sub- 

 ject to the losses of transformers. If the 

 transformers used with this system were 

 made more than ten years ago, they prob- 

 ably involve a total loss, due to eddy and 

 hysteresis, of about $1,000 per day, at the 

 ten-cent rate. Transformers as they are 

 made to-day, by using improved iron, are 

 saving nearly half of this loss, but there 

 still remains over $500 loss per day, to 

 serve as a subject for interesting research 

 work. 



It should also be noted that Boston uses 

 only a very small fraction of the alternating 

 current energy of this country. 



Consider for a moment two references to 

 the sciences and industry in Germany and 

 England. Dr. 0. N. Witt, professor in the 

 Berlin Koyal Technical High School, re- 

 porting to the German government in 1903, 

 says: "What appears to me to be of far 

 greater importance to the German chemical 

 industry than its predominant appearance 

 at the Columbian World's Fair, is the fact 

 which finds expression in the German ex- 

 hibits alone, that industry and science 

 stand on the footing of mutual deepest 

 appreciation, one ever influencing the 

 other," etc. As against this. Professor H. 

 E. Armstrong, of entirely corresponding 

 prominence and position in England, says 

 of England : ' ' Our policy is the precise re- 

 verse of that followed in Germany. Our 

 manufacturers generally do not know 

 what the word research means. They place 

 their business under the control of practical 

 men . . ., who, as a rule, actually resent 

 the introduction into the work of the scien- 

 tifically trained assistants." If the Eng- 

 lish nation is to do even its fair share of the 

 work of the world in the future, its attitude 



