NATURE BEATS MECHANICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1922, Page 12

NATURE BEATS MECHANICS.

WE CANNOT DO BETTER THAN COPY NATURE’S MODELS. TO SOLVE OUR MECHANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS. London, Oct. 7. One of the most fascinating and wonderful scientific articles published recently is to be found in the Cornhill Magazine, edited by Leonard Huxley. It is of equal interest- to the lover of nature, the scientist, the engineer and. the religious mind. It is by Clara Boyle, and is called “Plants as Inventors.” With charming lucidity Miss Boyle opens to us some fresh chapters in the marvellous mechanism of plant life, and a great science fills the mind as one rea<ks them. She shows us engineering in everything and wonderful design implicit in all. A MAN AND HIS BOOK. “A few months ago,” says Miss Boyle, “a Stuttgart firm of publishers brought out a small book, which is bound to attract attention in this country as well as in Germany. Under the title of ‘Biotechnik,’ it deals with the wonderful mechanical achievements of the plant. The author, Dr. R. France, of Munich, is an eminent scientist who has devoted his life to the study of vegetable and animal organisms. Many fascinating books on these subjects have emanated from his pen, and the present little volume is only an extract from a more extensive and detailed work published in 1911). “In these pages Dr. France reduces all organic phenomena—with which he classifies humanity itself —to the comprehensive law of Adaptation to Necessity, in other words, that necessity alone creates the perfectly adapted functional formation of any organism. Further, he strikes a new note by displaying the plant’s absolute superiority over us, in our invention in’ every form of mechanical construction, so that we can do no better than copy, in our industrial activities, the models with which Nature has provided us. NATURE’S PERFECT STATE. “Dr. France reason. 4 thus: By the law of Nature, every organism has only one perfect shape, its optimum, which alone corresponds to its essential character, and when changing conditions cast it out of this perfect state there follows not a state of rest but processes of evolution. This evolution continue? by force of the fundamental law until, through constant scrapping of inefficient forms, the optimum, the perfect, state .of quiescence, is again reached, in which form and being are one. Thus we have a constant selection, and al] imperfect forms undergo modification until they reach their optimum —that is, become perfect. SEVEN ETERNAL FORMS. , “Crystal, sphere, plane, staff, band, screw and cone—these are the fundamental functional forms of the whole world. These suffice for every process of evqlution . towards the construction of every perfectly adapted shape, of eyery individual optimum. All existingsubstances must be based on these seven fundamental shapes, as Nature has not produced any others; let the human mind create what it will, it can only achieve variations of these seven forms; it cannot get beyond them. “We take a bluebell and on analysing it we see that leaves and petals are planes; the roundness of the'sphere, the ! shape of the cone, are joined with planes in its corolla; screw-lines and spiral planes are repeated in ornamental coils; the stalk is a staff. Again we find the seven fundamental forms, very niucji modified and complicated, it is true, but still they remain as the seven constructive parts of the world. “We try to refute the above definition, but we are baffled on every side. As a last resource, we consider a masterpiece of human intelligence, a modern steam-engine. Here are wedges, screws, bolts, rivets, pins, axle-shafts, axlebearings, couplings, cog-wheels, chains, pistons, piston-rods, piston-rod heads, piston-rod collars, cranks, eccentrics, connecting-rods, cylinders, tubes, and by our seven fundamental shapes, and valves. We measure each contrivance each one resol vjp itself into either plane, staff, screw, crystal form, cone, or spherical surface, “Mechanical science is not acquainted with a single model which cannot be traced back to Nature.’ Here is a law so great that it reduces engineering, industry and architectj|rp, art and science oven minerals, stones, mountains and celestial bodies —in short, all existing substances —to one uniform definition. The same mechanical law governs identically all forms of life. The laws of least' resistance and of the minimum of effort require that the same activities lead always to the same forms, and that all evolution must, proceed within the scope of the so' en fundamental shapes.”

GO TO THE FLAGELLATES: BE WISE Miss Boyle then describes the marvellous moving and swimming capacity of those minute pirates of the deep, the animal Flagellates, and advises naval architects to study them and be wise. “Many Flagellates, especially those belonging to the Monad group, are the swiftest and most ravenous robbers among the animaleulae. . “One representative of this group is Tetramitus costatus. Its shape is not known in naval architecture; when, however. its proportions were enlarged to the scale of the underwater part, of a ship’s hull, and shown to an expert, the latter declared that on the basis of such a model a faster ship could indeed be constructed, or if the speed were to remain the same, a considerable economy in coal could be effected. Whilst we have to construct engines of 40.000 to 70.000 horse-power, and consume an enormous amount of coal, in order to propel a ship, say 600 ft long, at a speed of 23 knots, i.e.. some 36ft. about 1-17 of its length, a second, a tiny Monad, 1-100 mm. long, is able to cover 20 mm. a second, or 2000 times its own length; whereas, on the basis of the powers at our disposal, and allowing for the proportionate resistance against the motion, it would only bo ahlc to cover 4.2 mm. an hour. By means of its ’flagellum-screw’ this little creature is thus enabled to attain proportionately a swiftness several thousand t imes’in excess of that of our ships, although it only uses the upper part of its flagella. lhu- bringing into play onlv a small portion of its full powers.’’ THE WONDERS OF COLLOID. Few people will know what “Colloid’ -is. hut Miss Boyle points out. that it. has had a mighty past, helps the world

along to-day, and has a mighty future when man knows how to apply its secrets.

“Rubber is a colloidal solution; the rubber solution which the bicyclist knows so well, is neither a liquid, nor a gas, nor yet a solid body. We might say that the colloid is the fourth, state of matter attainable on our planet; and its universality is quite a possible supposition. Already we are able to convert all metals, as wen as silicic acid and albumen, into colloids, and very probably we shall one day be able to convert every substance into the colloidal condition. It has been proved that all colloids are of a cellular, or honeycomb, construction. W*e can easily explain this fact by recalling to mind* that the cell is the structural shape of colloid, that is of the plasm. In fact, all plant-life is a colloidal problem. PLANTS STRONGER THAN IRON. “On the basis of this knowledge, scientists are now trying to solve a mystery which, under our eyes, is being constantly solved -by the plant—namely, the colloidal boiler. “Our big ship boilers have been tested to from 18 to 25 atmospheres, that is to say, each square centimetre is tested to bear a pressure of from 18 to 25 kilos, and in order to attain this object the thickness of the boiler walls must generally measure 1-200th part of the boiler’s diameter. “When we consider living plant-cells through a microscope, it inust surprise us again and again to find how tensely they fill their container. If. however, we add a tiny quantity of sugar solution to the water in which we examine the cells, we observe that the tightly stretched walls shrink immediately. Scientists call this experiment a decrease of osmotic pressure, and by measuring this osmotic pressure they ascertained that' in a normal . plant-cell it amounts to from 5 to 10 atmospheres, or just as much as the pressure in a small boiler, without taking into consideration the heat to which the latter is exposed. “The fine skin which bears this pressure is, of course, of plasmatie nature, that is. of colloidal structure. From the above it follows that colloidal membrane must be of enormous strength, even stronger than iron sheets. “In the cells of sugar-beet the colloidal membrane 1-1000 m.ml thick, ’withstands a pressure of 21 atmospheres; the thickness of the boiler’s walls measures in this instance hardly 1-5000th part of the boiler's diameter. The osmotic pressure in mildew-fungi is supposed to amount to as much as 160 atmospheres. We must use iron sheets two fingers thick, where a thin membrane suffices for Nature’s needs. In this respect, as in so many others, the mechanical powers of the plant are much superior to ours.

“A new problem, a new aim. now lies before the scientist. How can we construct a ‘colloidal boiler’? The task has been indicated, the goal is attainable, apd the human mind is sure not to rest until the present day steam-boiler can be thrown upon the scrap-heap,” concludes Miss Boyle.