Newspapers / Shelby Daily Star (Shelby, … / Oct. 17, 1932, edition 1 / Page 2
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Man-Made Lightning That Rivals Nature’s Thunderbolts How Electrical Force Has Been Fallen from the Realm of Magic and Tamed to Do as Science Bids. gardod this visitation as a stroke of for tune, although if he had been in the camp at the moment he would have been a victim of the lightning bolt. For days afterward Mr. Steinmetz poked around amid the debris, examining everything, noting everything. He even pieced to gether a mirror which had been shat tered by the lightning. Then he began to thjnk over the ideas which the experience had created in his mind. Eventually he got the notion of I imilating lightning, and within a year ; he had designed and built a lightning generator which produced thunderbolts. \ This was the beginning of a serious ' investigation of lightning, the object of ■__ This Remarkable Photograph of an Electrical Labora tory Fvperinicnt Shows Ten Million Volts of Artilirial lightning in n Blinding. Fracking Hash. 1.raping Across a Gap 30 Feel Wide Between Two Veedlr Points, * and Producing an Arc of 68 Feet, TEN million volts, of electricity. Which is twice the power of any thunderbolt ever before produced by man in electrical laboratory experi ments! This enormous voltage, which can produce an arc Of 00 feet, has been made possible by a new flfty^million kilo * watt generator perfected in the engi rneering laboratories of the General Electric Company. Not all of the exact characteristics of the 10,000,000-volt dischafgfe are known, as this high voltage has been attained for the first time. Likewise, the fields „ in which the new high voltage will be list'd experimentally or otherwise 'are yet to be determined, but it will be used in the continued research being con ducted by electrical engineers in the study of natural lightning, its effects on electrical generating and transmission apparatus, and/vays of protect mg such apparatus from dantago by lightning. With the increased voltage now avail able in the laboratory, it. becomes pos sible for the engineers to approximate more closely the effects of natural light ning. “Whether or not. this high voltage v ill produce cosmic rays or split the atom, as scientists have predicted.” says V. W. -Peek. ,1 r„ an electrical en gineer, “only time will- tell. It may be possible to do these thing?.' We, haven’t had time to investigate yet. ■'While the limit of voltage di rectly produced by man has now teen increased to ten million volts, the voltage indirectly, prod need as a result of reflection, is a doubling The f.alhode Ray Oseilla lor, or Elec tronic® <'.atn rti, Which Was I sed in Photograph ing the Ten Million - \ oh of Man-Len crated Light ning. oi me len-nmuon-voit impulse ai me • ■nds of a transmission line. In this re spect the voltage is like a water-wave, w hich upon striking,* wall doubles upon reflection. “Natural lightning is of the order of 100,000,000 volts (1,0 times that of labor atory lightning), 200,000 amperes, and that the discharge occurs in a few mil lionths of a second. “Mastery of lightning problems -has been \emoved from the realm of .the 'medicine man.’ While there is still much to learn, lightning may be said to be now at least on an engineering basis. Now the Photographer ” Wears” His Camera A Photographer “Wearing" a Port able Darkroom and Camera Which. Enable* Him ta Take Pic ture* and Com plete Them for Delivery WTfo6ul 1.caving the Spot. PEOPLE who were present at a recent . outdoor sports meet in Hirmingham, England, were treated to the very odd sight of a man dressed in what appeared to Lie a large black box. Anyone who jumped to the conclusion that the man has lost his clothes and was garbed in a box instead of the customary barrel was greatly mistaken. The utter lack of embarrass ment and the nonchalance with which the strangely-clothed man mingled with the crowds, indicated that his curious garb was being worn to serve some other purpose, which, by the way. it really was. Investigation disclosed the fact that The First Mustard r TX THEN Shakespeare wrote, “What t \ 1/1/ say you to a piece of beef and ^ V V mustard?” he had not in his mind r the yellow condiment of today. In the v sixteenth century mustard was a piquant sauce, which varied according to the . special recipe treasured by individual families. As the flavor improved by keeping, it was prepared in bulk, being ground in a mortar. _ Black mustard seed only was used, this being infinitely superior to the white. It was not until 1720 that powdered mustard was sold commercially, and it »• was a woman who made the first ven ture. Mrs. Clements, of Durham, Eng land, ground the seeds in a mill, and, sifting the flour from ihe husk first, pro duced the now familiar bright yellow powder, calling it “Durham mustard.” the wearer’s boxlike costume was serving a most usual purpose. Sur prising to announce the box affair was#a camera with a complete dark-room attached, including its own developing, printing, ana fin ishing compartments stocked with the necessary chemicals. * This device enabled the photng rapher to take his pictures, finish and deliver them on the spot to his customers. . The camera.is installed at the front of the box, on the right side of which is an opening through which the photogra pher thrusts his right hand when taking a picture to manipulate the various con trols that enable him to secure the proper focus and operate the lever that .controls the time of the exposure. Openings at thfc top and bottom ot the box permit the obtrusion of the camera man's head and legs. A special dark room window is inserted at the top so that the photographer easily can see within the cabinet while he is develop ing his negatives and completing his pictures. Do Plants Really Have Brains? ROWING plant? m»v have_ 1 “brains” and display reasoning power, according to an announce ment of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. 0, The discovery was made by Dr. Earl S. Johnston, who, it is reported, has found in plants a strik ingr-'similarity to the intelligence of human beings. Dr. Johnston centered his experiments on the mysterious ability of plants to turn their stems and leaves toward the light. He concludes that every plant be haves as though it had a more or less localized region, a sort of “brain,” that reacts directly to the stimulation of lights In seedlings of oats and wheal, the supposed brain is centralized in the tip of leaf sheath that encircles the bud of the growing shoot. The first milli meter (about 1/25 of an inch) is 160 times as*»ensitivc as the second and 1,800 times as sensitive as the third. European experimenters had already discovered that if they cut off the head of a seedling it lost its power to turn toward the light, but regained it when the up was grafted back on again. Now Dr, Johnston is investigating the mysterious manner in which this “brain" operates, if it exists, and how ik gets its message to the lower part of the plant’s ■“VtCn where the bending occurs. His method of studying this process, ns explained in Popular Science Month ly, consists of exposing growing seed lings to light of different colors. •'Plants are selected for their straightness and set perfectly upright in a cabinet, ex posed on each.side to light of a different color. After half an hour the bending of the plant toward the light having the stronger effect may be observed with a telescope. By delicate control of the lights’ intensity and wave length, a pre cise comparison of their effect may be made. Blue light proves most exciting. Portraits on Wood |0RTRA1TS are made on wood by a California artist who follows the JL grain of the wood in bringing out the lights and shadows necessary to pro duce a picture. The artist, who has worked thirty years on the process, says thf wood-grain portraits will not fade. The process calls for working the por trait into the grain so that it becomes part of the wood and can be removed only by scraping or cutting the surface. lint Ywuitm §f»4le»U !«r , tilt since it is expressed numerically in volts and amperes. "The following indicates how rapid the progress has been: The wave shape of lightning has been pictured by the cathode ray oscillograph, or high-speed camera; the time required for a cloud to discharge has been measured by the same oscillograph; the attenuation of lightning waves traveling .on a trans mission Tine has been determined; natu ral lightning waves have been repro duced in the laboratory, where their effects on transmission lines, insulation, insulators.and transformer and protec tive apparatus have been studied at will. “It is now possible to design trans mission lines free from lightning trou blcs or interruptions as well as light ning-proof transformers and other«elec trical apparatus. It hns' also taught us how to build efficient protective de vices to guard other electrical apparatus froin lightning disturbances.’’ Lawless lightning, which acknowl edges no regulations of man’s contri vance, committed one serious error of judgment in its ageless career when it Hashed in lurid fury from the storm Worship of Cats NEARLY a thousand years before the Christian era the cat was worshiped- in Egypt as a agod, being then supposed to be the reincarna tion of Bast, the Goddess of the Sun. Death was the penalty meted out to all who punished a cat or caused its un timely end, but when dead the cat was mummified and buried with pomp and splendor in Bubastis, the City of the Goddess of the Sun. The cat has always been held in the highest reverence in Egypt. Even today many of the fellaheen still believe that the souls of sleeping babies enter into the beings of cats, and thus a real Egyp tian will never willingly till a cat in case he should slay the soul of the child as well. In the hinterland of Egypt the great est compliment one woman can pay an other is to tell her that her eyes are like ihos# of a cat. Thi'<,urlou«-Looking Lorall'kc formation l« a High Voltage 1' ulgurite Produced in Sand bv V BoJ.t of Artificial Lightning. skies, and smashed up things in the little summer lodge of the late Charles P. Steinmetz. On that dav lightning played right into the hands'of one of its arch foes. _The dwarf-like '•little giant.” one of the greatest electrical mathematicians of modern times, re "hich was to protect electric transmi* sion lines from the attacks of the “cvini inal” bolts and to vender these lines so inuuune from lightning that interrup- 4 tions in' electric service to homes, offices and factories would be reduced to- thA vanishing point. Why You Have Ten Senses EVERY normal human bring not only has five senses, but also a sixth sense, proverbially counted as missing. In addition there is a sev enth sense, too, an eighth, a ninth, and even a tenth, with an additional proba bility that some of these should be di vided or others added to make a total of fifteen or twenty. The chief ten and some possible divisions ate listed by the American Medical Association. The sense'of sight really is triple, ac.-' cd^ding to this authority, -since it in cludes perception of three different things, light, form, and color. Touch includes a sense that records changes of shape of the skin, a sense of vibration, tickling, and a sense of Strain or pressure perceived by nerve endings deep in the muscles. The remaining three of 'he Conven tional five senses, taste, smell, and hcar , ing, the Association lists as single and uncomplicated. Of the five other senses listed, fine is the temperature sense residing in special nerve endings in the skin, which enables one to distinguish between hot and cold objects. . Another sense includes the sensations ? from muscles, tendons, and joints, which enable one to senee the movements of the body or the positions of legs or arms. Third of the list is the sensemf up right position supplied b.v the leveling mechanism close to the inner ear. This enables a person to keep his balance. Next is listed the pain sense found >n the skin, the muscles and 'the blood vessels. Completing the list of ten arc the sense stimuli from internal organs, which are believed to affect such auto matic actions as breathing and t-he bea' ing of the heart. Waterless Fuel A DEVICE that removes water from gasoline ha«-^pn!y one moving part, A delicately ad justed float that sinks in any liquid of a lower specific gravity than water. Any unusual influx of water causes the float to rise and allow the waiter to flow di rectly through the chamber and escape. Water in minute quantities is trapped in the bottom of the chamber until ifs level is high enough to actuate the float. The largest model thus far developed delivers 150 gallons of pure gasoline a minute, while others are small enough to install on the feed line of an airplane or automobile. It is itfud to be so sensi tive that it can separate cold water from hot. How “Fins77 Give a Boat High Speed BY reducing resistance instead of increasing power, Dr. Oskar G. Tietjens has devised a method of almost doubling the speed of water craft' up to 60 feet in length. While the jdea of lifting a boat with fins is not new, Dr. Tietjens, who is a research engineer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manu facturing Company, applied his knowl edge of hydro- and aerodynamics to the task of raising the craft completely out of the water with a couple of stream lined planes with cross sections similar to those of an airplane’s wings. He bc lieve.s it is the first time that this has ever been done sufficiently without losing .stability. Dr. Tietjens' method of con trolling the rear plane keeps the boat level at all times and prevents plunging and dipping unless the waves are higher than whitecaps. “Frictional resistance in water is 800 times the wind resistance of the same surface in air,” Dr. Tietjens savsJ, “be cause water is 800 times as dense as air. For the same reason the lifting force of a submerged plane is 800 times as great as for the same plane in air. area and speed being equal. “In water the frictional resistance ot ‘drag’ of present type high-speed craft is one-sixth of the buoyancy or lifting effect of the water. For the new type this ‘drag’ is only one-twentieth of the lift. “By maJung practical use of these facts, the speed of a motor boat capable of 25 miles an hour-in water will be raised to 40 miles an hour with* no in crease «f power when lifted into the air by the submerged planes.” uy Dr. Tietjens believes, that the idea1' practical in this form for boats ranging in size from 12 feet to 60 feet long. In his model of this new boat,. Dr. Tietjens attached the planes to the hull just forward of amidships. To the ends of these sections and extending across beneath the hull is the main plane. For the 12-foot craft. Dr. Tietjens calculates^ a steel plane eight inches wide would be entirely adequate. nose of the craft climbs out of the water as speed increases. Manipulation of the rear plane in con junction with the rate of speed main tains stability, keeps the cruiser level and above a certain speed the entire hull is out of the water. In this position the boat is riuing on the two narrow planes. Dr. Tietjens considers an outboard motor particularly suitable for this new type of l.iarh-speed water craft. just iorwaru oi the propeller is the second plane, so hinged that it controls vertical direction and stability much as do the “flippers” on airplanes. As the skipper lowers the forward edge of the rear plane, it cuts down, lowering the stern of the boat. This automatically increases the lift of the forward plane so the \ Srw Model of Boat Equipped »ilh Streamlined Planer. Similar to an Airplane'* Win**. Which Double the Speed of the Craft With out Inrrra«ing It* Engine Power.
Shelby Daily Star (Shelby, N.C.)
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Oct. 17, 1932, edition 1
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