SCIENTISTS' NEW QUEST

Otaki Mail, 2 January 1924, Page 3

SCIENTISTS' NEW QUEST

MYSTIFYING OFF MAX EXPERIMENTS. Scientists wins have been studying the possibility a 1 development:-; of radio activity in th> air arc deeply interested in tlie report that there is a strong' belief that the repealed failure of French airplanes when Hying' over German territory is duo to the action of secret rays discovered by the Germans. Two theories have been put forward. One is that by a concentration of wireless rays tlie magneto of the airplane may be affected; and another is that a now ray has been discovered which will melt certain metals. In this connection it is notable that most of the forcc-d landings of French airplanes when flying from Strasbourg to Prague have taken place in the vicinity of a German airdrome at Furth. Slit ■ OLIVER LODGE'S VIEW. Sir Oliver Lodge, a pioneer of' wireless telegraphy, who has conducted wide researches into the transmission of power through tlie air, asked to express his opinion on what has occurred, replied; “It. might be possible by strong oscillations to excite surgings in the metal of an airplane, so that sparks occurred at wrong times and thus stopped the engine. No other way is lately.” Professor A. _M. Low, another scientific investigator, while expressing the view that the claims now advanced for the Germans sounded

far-fetched, showed that scientists I have been working' along' the lines of discovering a new force which can be projected through the air with the object of disabling an airplane. '• What scientists have been engaged upon,” he saiu, “is the means of sending in the form of oscillations through the air a force which on coming- in contact with a metal will j generate liaat. If this force could; bo concentrated and made sufficiently powerful the metal of the airplane could be melted and the machine would be brought down. I feel confident that in 5U or 6b years’ time such a thing will be possible. In the laboratory, experiments on these lines have already been successful. It has been possible to transmit over a distance of two feet rays of a sufficient power to melt a small coil of wire. Hut there is a wide difference between transmitting such a power over a distance of a foot or two and a distance of one or two thousand yards.” NAUEK EXPERIMENTS. It is a well known fact that for | some Time the big German wireless station at Nauen has been experimenting with direction wireless, with the object of sending out wireless rays concentrated along a certain path in the same way as the beams of a searchlight are. directed along a certain path. The authorities at Nauen have denied, however, that anything they are- doing could in any way have- affected the French airplanes. | The director of the Nauen station I was furious not long ago when an i extraordinary story leaked out about j a number of motor-cars having been brought to a dead stop on a lonely ! road at night by a wh-Uss beam j focused across a stretch of couatrv by the Nauen station. French Secret Service agents i affirm that this experiment did take place, but a whisper of *it somehow or other leaked out, with the result , that the Germans have been spend- ' ing most of their time sine*- in for the experiment, which was ! throwing cold water on the whole I idea and in saying that, even If ! motor-cars were brought to a half i by Nauen, the magnetos of these j cars had been prepared beforehand merely an ingenious demonstration of ordinary wireless control. This does not, however, fit in j with the incautious statement c,f on» German technician with the ! night party In question who was i heard triumphantly to declare that i what Nauen was sending out that i night was a directed bsam having j such characteristics and such power that it might be regarded as a brand ' sew form of wireless rav Last year Professor L. G. V. Rota -. &n Italian scientist described experiments ne was conducting with telluric currents, which emanate from the earth and with which Lord Kelvin had occupied himself befers j his death. He affirmed that it : would be possible with these cur- I rents to melt heavy- masses of metal at a distance of 60 miles and to put : out of action a wireless station at a ! range of 200 miles