WITHOUT PREJUDIE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 64, 9 December 1926, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDIE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

“M.A.” writes from the East Cttc “What is a millibar ?—This questionas set at to-day’s matriculation pape.in physical science. There are at its school five teachers with science egrees, and none of them, has ever bed. of the term. Up to the present we he not been successful in finding it m book. Is it a fair question to set® matriculation candidates? lam writij this letter not so much with the objc of criticising the question as for ti purpose of getting an answer to i Can you or any of your readers gn it? If so, I should be much oblige if you would publish it, as I suppos there are many other teachers of scienei at other schools who arc just aa . s eor ant as we are, and would be pleasec to be enlightened.”

This question shows us how up-to-date matriculation students in New Zealanc have to be nowadays. The moderr child, besides teaching his grandmothei how to suck eggs, is now quite properly expected to run rings round the obsolete knowledge of his elders of a generation now well on the road to perdition. There is not the least doubt that there are such things as millibari —we can’t say we would know them if we saw them—but that is our mis fortune, and to thq average infant o:> sixteen, who knows much better mat the manufacturer how a wireless se should be put together, a millibar is i mere bagetelle.

We are pleased to inform “M.A. that we have run the millibar to eartl We started the hunt in our own pdictionary, but drew a blank; then v turned to the huge volumes of t‘ “New Oxford Dictionary,” theoretally the last word on the English la guage. Millibars, alas, don’t ext in the pages of these pondercs tomes. The twenty-nine volumes f the eleventh edition of the “Encyopaedia Britannica” know them r. The three supplementary volurs forming the twelfth edition of tit work mention them, and pass on o something pleasanter. Only the fit of the new volumes of the thirteeh edition of the Encyclopaedia has tened the Dominion, and the index eing yet to come, we cannot scar that millibars are not in it, but tn only say we have not found tin there. We found a fine article >n “Bootlegging,” however, and an en more interesting one on the “Chatston.” So it will be seen that, ndirectly, millibars have widened nr culture. ,

• ** • , , Finally, we made the acquaintsce of the millibar in an American jblication, Messrs. Funk and Wagnd’s “New Standard Dictionary” of 123. Looking up the heading “lillibr,” we encountered a reference to “ee bar,’’’ and this is what we aw:-

A C.G.S. unit of atmospheric press re equivalent to one megadyne pc squ.re centimetre, corresponding to a ladinf of the mercurial barometer of 7!06 mßimetres at standard gravity. The lecimal submultiples are named i aciordance with the usual metric teninelogy dacibar, centibar, and millitr. A pressure of one bar occurs aton average altitude of 106 metres love ; sea level.

This lucid explanation stilleft one or two points to clear up. Th“C.G.S. system” looked as if it migl be the initials of a subsidiary brant of the famous Compagnie General Transatlantique which runs the crac French liners, and the “megadyne” bore a strong family resemblance to t megaphone. In both cases, hower, we found we were running a co trail. The “C.G.S. system” proved, efurther search, to be the “centimetre-gm-sec-ond system” and a megaaie the dictionary obligingly defined ai‘a million dynes.” It was astonisng to think that dynes exist in bunes of a million at a time, and yet we If never heard of even one of them.

• • • Turning up "dyne” in the dtionary we found the following definiti.:—

The fundamental unit of fore in the C.G.S. ay stem: the force whicbapplied to a mass of one gram for on second would give it a velocity of oi centimetre a second.

If “M.A.” and his colleague have not a clear conception of vat a millibar is after all this, v are afraid we can do no more foithem. Not being highly educated puelves, all we can say is that we gatli that a millibar is something to do wh the pressure of the atmosphere an altitude of 106,000,090 metres ibove sea level; or, may be, it ; at 106,000,000 metres below sea lei. If there isn’t any atmosphere at ither of these places we wouldn’t b surprised if a millibar had semiring to do with the pressure of the tnosphere •at .00106 of a metre abov sea level, or at .00106 of a metre clow sea level. If it isn’t any ofhese things we fear we shall have 1 be written down for good and all is a complete educational failure.

We had hoped to go much lore fully than this into the fasciititlg subject of millibars, with a seri< of illustrated interviews with univsity professors on “Millibars I Have let,” etc. Our efforts to collect a sympdum on millibars for this morning’s ssue were doomed to disappointment, iow? ever. We approached one univsity professor and inquired, in as ingtiatiug a tone as possible, what mibars were . <>d dif I know,” saicthe professor in a gruff voice—if we haven’t got the language exactly thia was the effect of it. Shocked athia horrible admission, we decided hat, in the interests of higher cducion, it might be kindest to draw a discreet *” veil over what. the trversitv professors don’t know about ullibars. It would be a great bio - to the prestige of our educational system if the matriculation eramineigot to work on the professors Ind plaghcd the lot.

The rubber industry hai rewad<d the man who smuggled nbber seds out of Brazil and so led t. the grat industry in the Far East. It was in 1878 that Sir Henry Wickhm, m lefiance of Brazilian law, sniggled lie precious seeds out of Brad and ;ot them to Kew Gardens ii London. These seeds in due course povided tbs material for the extensive (anting cf rubber in the Far East, an thus Sr Henry earned for himself the titl«, “Father of the Plantation hbber 11dustry.” His services to tie of tie most' prosperous industries in tie world are now being suitabljrewardel. The Straits Settlements hat recently voted £3OOO towards an hon-arium to Sir Henry, and the Federal Mahy States are expected to vote 5000. Add to these handsome sums th gifts received in June of £5OOO f ton an American and £lOOO from an Arrican oil company, and it will be. see that Sir Henrv is adequately providedor tn Ins old age. He is now over ciity years old. and lives quietly in the *cst End of London. ADVENTURE. A boy, I had a strong desire To "break up boulders, justo know Their crystal cores. I wade streams For shells, to see their nae glow. And tiow, a man, I love to 5k Upon plain common men,md pry Into their hearts; for each c holds, If not a star, a trace of sk —Charles G. T.nden.