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SCIENCE SIFTINGS

By "VOLT"

HELPS FOR CYCLISTS. Ever since pneumatic tyres were invented there have been countless contrivances intended to act as puncturepreventers. The best remedy is a sufficient thickness of rubber in the tread, so long as it is of the highest possible quality. Injections of glycerine and other sticky fluids are messy makeshifts. Puncture-proof bands inside the cover are unsatisfactory, as they overload the wheel, slow the running, and make repairs more complicated. French cycles are taking the fancy of many expert riders. In more than one of the latest patterns the cycle frames are welded by the oxyacetylene process. This gets rid of all lugs, and provides a light and strong frame. Not one British manufacturer has yet ventured on this enormous improvement in frame-building. A LIGHTING SET. I have been using a Swiss-made dynamo lighting set for tho two lamps on my bicycle (says a writer in Tit-Bits, London). It is one of the neatest and most attractive of the devices now marketed for enabling you to act as your own power-station when on a machine. As there is a single wire to each lamp, and the return circuit is by way of the frame, connections have to be cleared of enamel to make sure they are metallic. An electric fit-up has obvious conveniences, especially for short journeys, but it does not boast the brilliance of acetylene or the jog-trot trustworthiness of oil lamps. SOME MEN OF SCIENCE. How many present-day scientists could you name? Edison and Marconi come into your mind at once; possibly you might mention Sir Oliver Lodge. Of the older men many names occur in a flash Darwin, of evolution fame; Huxley, the biologist; Herschel, the astronomer; Faraday, the electrician; Frank Buckland, the naturalist. Scientists of to-day are not, as a rule, endowed with the power of self-expression; they cannot put the record of their work or of their discoveries into words which all can understand. If they give lectures or write books, they use a curious technical language of their own. A wellknown writer said of them that they had more to tell us than any other class of men, but that they were of all men the least able to tell it. That is why we know so little of their doings. When the present writer (to a London paper) was an undergraduate at Cambridge, Sir Joseph Thomson, the famous scientist, was a well-known figure— stooping a little, and seemingly always absorbed in some deep train of thought. A rumor current in those days had it that he was so absent-minded that he invariably forgot to shave, and that when he had become too bristly to be respectable his wife forced him into a chair and shaved him! The name of Marconi is so well known to most people that there is no need to say more than a word or two about this dark, slim, modest young man whose discoveries have made it possible for us to communicate with ships thousands of miles from land, or with flying aeroplanes; and to send messages through the air to the other side of the world. It was in 1899 that Marconi first 'succeeded in sending wireless messages between England and France; three years later he had enabled Canada to talk to us by air; to-day we can send a radiogram .to any part of the world!

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19210901.2.87

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 1 September 1921, Page 46

Word count
Tapeke kupu
565

SCIENCE SIFTINGS New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 1 September 1921, Page 46

SCIENCE SIFTINGS New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 1 September 1921, Page 46

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