NEW AGE OF DISCOVERY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 766, 26 March 1954, Page 26

NEW AGE OF DISCOVERY

N 1952 Spencer King and Peter Wills, in a British model, set up the first world speed record for the gas-turbine car, This car is the principal character in "Your Future Motoring," a feature in a new BBC series, Discovery, which will be going the rounds of National Stations during the next few months. Each of the programmes is about some aspect of scientific research and development in Britain. "Your Future Motoring" will be heard first from 1YA, at 8.5 p.m., on Tuesday, March 30. David Martin, who is joint producer of this first programme, takes a microphone to Birmingham factories where, with Spencer King, he examines and discusses with development engineers the action and performance of the engine. King takes him for a ride in the car, and listeners will hear the first recordings ever made in this "motor-car of the future" which will ultimately reach speeds of well over a hundred miles an hour with no gear-changing. The car’s registration number is JET 1, but while it is popularly called the jet car, King says in the programme that this is not an accurate description. I€ doesn't drive itself along by squirting a jet of hot gas out behind it but by its engine rotating the rear wheels as in ‘any other car. The production of plastics in Great Britain has risen by about 400 per cent. in the last 10 years, and for "A Plastic World," the second programme in Discovery, David Martin and James Pestridge visited two large firms near Birmingham to get first-hand information from experts about recent developments. In the laboratories they saw tests being carried out on plastic materials-from cups that resist stain and paper that resists saturation to crease-resisting and unshrinkable fabrics and plastic emulsion paints. They also

inspected an expertmental © et incorporating glass fibre and resin, of such strength and lightness that it is particularly suitable for the hulls of small boats. The programme gives listeners a good picture of the various types of plastic, the raw materials which form their bases, and their uses. "A Plastic World" will

be heard from 3YA at 8.15 p.m. on Sunday, April 4. "New Lamps for Old," the third programme in the series, takes listeners to the research station of a Rugby electrical firm, where the producers interviewed experts on new developments in domestic and street lighting. Listeners will hear among other things of the work being carried out on tubular fluorescent lamps which play such a big part in road illumination, The developmerit of these lamps for specialised interior purposes

involves complex research into the use of phosphorus for the production of colours and greater intensity. Station 4YC will broadcast "New Lamps for Old" at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, April 2. The last Discovery programme is about antibiotics. Penicillin — the star member of_ this group of life-saving drugs-has been in

wide general use only since 1945, though it was first used on a London policeman in 1941. Towards the end of the war David Martin visited one of the first penicillin plants built, and in "Antibiotics" he goes back to see the changes that have taken place. James Pestridge went with Martin on this visit, and listeners will hear members of the research department describe tg them wor’: being done in the antibiotics field.