USES OF SCIENCE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 187, 4 May 1920, Page 7

USES OF SCIENCE

AS AID TO INDUSTRY

BUREAU OF STANDARDS PROPOSAL WORK TO BE DONE Ah effort is being made by the authorities 'controlling Victoria College to induce the Government to provide more accommodation for the study of physios iu the college, tho present rooms and facilities being altogether ■ inadequate and unsuitable. A description of the - rooms used for the teaching of physics and for the practical work of the : students would be intelligible only to .those familiar with, the work, but the overcrowding in the classes in this subject,while not.threatening the health of the students a9-overcrowding may in the schools, is a very serious hindrance to the best work being done' by tho teacher (Professor Marsden), his assistant, and the students themselves.' The need for more "laboratory accommodation is undeniable, and the Department has admitted this need and promised that in some measure it iVill' give relief. But Professor Marsden has; an idea also that this country' needs' a 'National, Physical Laboratory, or Bureau of Standards, as the corresponding institution is' called in America, which should exist for the benefit of all the industries of tho 'country, and which should be'under; some' form of representative control. Assuming that such an institution is too. ambitious at a time when so many other heavy demands are'being made on the public ' purse, he is asking that in the meantime a start .should bo made by setting aside a definite part of itho -proposed physics buildings of the College for. the. purposes of such a laboratory or bureau. The work to bo done by such a bureau of standards would be the testing of apparatus or instruments or materials whether made in the country or imported, 'used,' in the industries of the country. This work is not being left quite undone now, but a great many tests that should be made are not made simply because the neople most concerned, are perhaps unaware of the need for any thine; of the sort, or because there is no place whore anyone,can apply to have such a test made. -f-'omo' of this work is already done at Victoria College, some is done at . the engineering, school lit Canterbury College, and some of the technical heads of private firms and public Departments have provided themselves with exoensivo testing apparatus of their own. All are agreed as to the need for such a bureau as is suggested.. and the heads of all the big technical Departments of the State are agreed that it should be in Wellington. , Electricity Standards. , If there is any truth in Government promises, the biggest development in this country in the next few years will be in the use of electricity. Hundred; of tests ought to be made every year in respect of electrical appliances and material. Every owner of electric works, or every seller of electric current, will need standards for the testing of meters. Every borough in the country will require to have these standards established. The suggestion is that the instruments should all io sent into one central bureau, where one standard for the whole country could be established. The instruments to come iu for this test would, of course, not be the ordinary meters supplied to consumers, but the other appliances by which meters should be tested on beins issued and from time to time afterwards. These instruments get • out of order in time, and it is suggested that instead: of every borough being required to procure for itself the expensive standard instruments, these should be kept in one central depot, to which all other'appliances could be sent for periodical testing; 1 The central bureau would test an instrument scientifically, and give a certificate as to the amount of correction it required.

As to materials in more common use, there is even more need for .' testing. There is said to be the createst need for testing of electric lamps. The-ordinary cus, tomer buys electric lamps on their specified candle power, paying a price'm accordance with the alleged power of the lamp. The supplier of the lamps is in just about the same position as the retail purchaser at present: he. cannot have a lamp tested ' anywhere in the country, unless the authorities in the physics department of one of the colleges are kind enough to do it for him. It is not their business to do it, and they may not havo time for it, but occasionally such tests are made. They show that while some marks of lamps do give .tho snecified candle power, there are others which do not give anything like tho amount of illumination they ought to give. Any dealer in these goods ought to bo in a position to havo a test made' of the lamps he is buying, and this he. would be able' to obtain for a very small fee if a bureau of standards were established. Possibly the. establishment of standards in the country would prevent goods from being sold on a wrong description, given to them by careless or unscrupulous makers. ' . Hundreds of miles of electric wire will bo imported into this country by many authorities during the. next few years. The authorities ought to be able to discover whether the wire they havo paid for is up to their specifications. This could be done for them at tho Central Bureau of Standards. Tons of copper will bo used on these works, nnd tho copper ought to-be tested. For the making of- electric lines millions of insulators will be used, Hitherto most of these have been imported, but the makers of porcelain in New Zealand have been trying to make them in later years. It should be possible to have the porcelain of the insulators tested, and it might be found as a result that it is quite possible to make them in tho country, or it'might also be found that insulators from certain other countries are not reliable. For Other Works. In other branches of engineering carried on by private enterprise and Iho State, there is scarcely less need _ for the testing of anparatus and materials. Tho head of tho" Public Works Department has declared publicly that he needs' .such work for his own Department. If it were offered, probably tho Railway Department might make use of, it also! Industries ne'sd laboratory advice on numberless questions. The flax industrv is one, which has had the benefit of some research work lately, and it is possible that more-will'be required, to deal with Buch matters «9 tin -relative values of ■ fibreß grown under different conditions or in different localities, or possibly from new species of the plant. Millars or growers might not be aide to pay for an expensive independent research, but yet might be able to pay such a fee as would be demanded from a national laboratory.. For Defence. A national laboratory would be the centre of all scientific work for tho defence of the country. Certain scienliiic questions have assumed tremendous importance in view of the war experience of eveii such a magnificent MU'v'"e as the British Navy. The scientists h"l to be appealed to for tho solution «" many problems which baffled tho ordinary experts. Scientists might be aWe to help the authorities on such matte's for example as the use of scientific appliances for the defence of our harbours. S important was this work judged to be by Admiral Jellicoo that in his report to the Government ho recommended that there should be established in connection with the college hero a Notionnl Physics Laboratory and Bureau of Standards. Tho work mentioned here is not engineering; it is.the application of pure science to engineering problems. There is the greatest need for the keening in the Dominion of accurate standards of length, weight, and capacity, as well as the standards more directly concerned with scientific work. Our appliances are imported from different countries, and the standards ore not always tho same in different countries. The Question of Cost. A National Laboratory would cost not less than .230,000, for building and apparatus, and after that provision would have to be made for staff and running. expense.

The, fees to be demanded would not be sufficient to provide the costs of operation. If the proposal that the Bureau of Standards bo established at Victoria College is adopted tho cost will bo much less. The college already has a groat deal of the necessary' equipment, and a beginning could be mario with an additional expenditure of about .£IOOO, leaving out of account the additional building accommodation required. This, at any rate, is the opinion of Professor Marsderi. Fortunately he has been able to convince the authorities of tho college of the -.importance of his subject, and they are;providing him with very good equipment. Just at present lie lacks facilities for making the best use of it. All this equipment would be available for the use of the Bureau of Standards if it should be established. About Control. As to the control of the institution, tho scheme of Professor Marsden is that it should be under the general direction of a board to ibe selected. His proposal is that the. professional heads of all scentific and technical Departments of State shall belong to the board, that the big industries also shall be represented, and that the Professor of Physics at the college shall be honorary director, to adviso the staff actually doing the work. The control ought, in his opinion, to be representative, so that there could be no ques. tion about the impartiality of the institution, and no room for possible jealousies among different brunches of scientific or engineering. workers under Government or private control. For the present the head of the Department, of Education, Dr. Anderson, seems to be of opinion that the work con be more effectively ami mora cheaply done a,t the Canterbury Engineering School than at. a new establishment in Wellington, nnd (hat it will be wiser to allow the work to continue at Canterbury until it is possible for the Government to face the big expenditure on a national physics laboratory in Wellington. On the other hand, ,there is evidenco that the people who wish to have scientific tests made do not iii fact use tin- Engineering School to any great extent, and that the inconvenience attaching to having the worlcdono out of sieht. of the experts interested makes the tests valueless. Some of tho Government Departments have had to'.purchase expensive testing apparatus of their own. It is urged that as ail the Government Departments which undertake the biggest engineering work in the country, nnd n great, number of firms interested in industries, have their head(Minners in Wellington, it will never be really possible to establish a Bureau of Standards, or, rather, to make full use of it when established, unless it is set up in Wellington. In any cn-e it is extremely doubtful, on information at present available, whether Victoria College has not already more of the necessary equipment than fliere is in the Canterbury Engineering School.