search conferences. Former students will Qever forget the scheduled evening meetings around the center faculty table with Lewis at the head, and junior workers occupying raised seats overlooking the scholastic arena, all in a terrific blanket of tobacco smoke. Here both full professor and beginning graduate student smiled or winced, as the case might be, under Lewis' crisp and vigorous leadership of discussion. Nor will old-timers forget the unscheduled conferences of Lewis with one or more researchers anywhere and everywhere in Gil man Hall—often main corridor. Despite obvious possibilities for cash profit, Lewis never sold his scholarly birthright for consulting fees; nor did he made it convenient for his staff to divide time with industry. This adherence to pure academic standards had no little influence in establishing the California
laboratory in such high esteem. Only the call of national duty in 1917-1S interrupted t h e chain of normal xescarch accomplishments. A t that time 2L.e\vis served a s colonel in the CWS in France. The foregoing remarks s e e m t o reach the conclusion that G. N. Lew-is was some sort of scholastic saint, apart from man. Actually h e was very much o f a regular fellow. H i s skill at contract bridge was excellent, as devotees of the Faculty Club a t Berkeley well knew, although t h e competition of Latimer and Branch kept him distinctly on his toes. His rating a t chess was not quite so good. Minor vices he cultivated reasonably. He particularly disliked after-dinner oratorical soft s o a p delivered in his honor. Visitors w h o attended t h e Lewis dinner of t h e 1£>35 national A C S meeting were astonished at the hilarious uproar which characterized this
Process Design Featured at AIChE Symposium JL ROCESS design was the nucleus of the symposium held by the New York Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers at the Hotel Pennsylvania in that city on Oct. 23. Over 700 members attended the sessions which were the scene of the presentation of many interesting papers. T h e meeting closed with a dinner at which P. C. Keith of Hydrocarbon Research, Inc., addressed the gathering. T h e speaker emphasized the need for the proper integration of the process developm e n t phase of a problem with the process design steps. T o illustrate his point, the dinner speaker used several case histories of his own company's activities. Such an integration of effort without the use of an extensive semiworks program can only be brought about by the use o f an exhaustive literature survey, the application of thermodynamics, postulation of reaction rates, diversified process designs, careful economics, on-the-spot pilot plants for major unknowns, and an integrated major pilot-plant program in agreement with final process design. T h e early part of the session was concerned with the discussion of varied factors in process design. Leo Friend of the M. W. Kellogg Co. presented a paper entitled "The Tools of Process Design." T h e author pointed out that there are several instances in which the engineer is called upon to design plants for the production or use of .materials about which very meager physical information is available. If lack of time or laboratory facilities make it impossible to obtain this information his only recourse is t o thermodynamic and ph3'sical-chemical relationships.
ics of a previously established process, and b y t h e method of preliminary process design. This latter approach, the speaker went on t o explain, can be lxaiulled from either a study of the component |>a,rts of a process in detail or on an ovex-all "basis. B y the use of illustrations, t l i e next speaker o n the program, J. McA. Harris, Jr., elaborated o n the role of economics in process design. This,*in the long run, he indicated, is the rallying p o i o t and meeting ground of such factors a s pilot-plant work, timing, company policy, specifications, and maintenance. P. J. Harrington of the Standard Oil Development Co. stressed tfcie operating approach t o the problem of design. Operators, he said, are aware of certain design requirements that must be m e t if safety, capacity, flexibility, and control needs are t o be satisfied. The latter part of the meeting which bore the name "Gripe Session" opened with a paper by Irving Taylor of t h e Lummus Co. regarding the selection of pumps a n d compressors. T h e speaker said that quite often t h e need exists for t h e comparison of two or more possible arrangements of process equipment with each other. T h i s means that the engineer
event, beginning about 7^20 P.M. This hilarity was not primarily alcoholic, as many presumed, but synthetic—deliberately precipitated by knowing friends who cbiose that device t o forestall embarrassment of Lewis by admiring eastern afterdinner speakers. After all is added together, one realizes t h a t the value of Gilbert Lewis lay not in a n y o n e or two spectacular discoveries, n o r in any key experiment heralded in n-ewspaper columns, nor in special feature university lectures. Rarely was his name c-ven attached t o a formal university course. Rather the chemical world recalls h i m as a thinker and a leader of scientific thinkers. T h e genuine scholarly enthusiasm which characterized such thinki n g spread fast, and far beyond the limits o f the Berkeley campus. His pupils, even h i s pupils' pupils, will never forget him.
w a n t s t o know quite a bit about the relat i v e costs and economics of operation. If b e does not have this information a t hand, h e should adopt the policy of considering h i s specifications as suggestions and not dictates. In this manner, several possibly superior alternates may be suggested t o him by the manufacturer or an engineer o f the manufacturing company. The session was closed with two papers dealing principally with the problem of equipment design a n d the way in which it is aided b y the collection of pertinent data. Philip S. Otten of Griscom-Russell C o . centered his remarks mainly o n t h e subj e c t of heat exchangers, in which h e lamented the poor transmission of operati n g information t o the equipment manufacturer from the operator. This thought w a s echoed somewhat in the paper by C . L . Knowles of Knowles Associates, who s a i d t h a t users often make things more difficult for themselves b y designing their o w n equipment t o very complicated specifications. Often they lack the machine s h o p experience t o make their task easier a n d still more often t h e y overlook t h e existence of a standard unit that would d o t b e job as well and possibly better. T h e answer, the speaker concluded, is for operators to overcome their reluctance t o discuss problems with t h e designing engineer a n d the equipment manufacturer.
Some of the arrangem-ents committee of the New Yorh Section, AIChE, meeting: Morgan Ssse of J1ydro>carbc*n Research; George Skaperdas of M. W. Kellogg; R.ichn.rd Morton of Hydrocarbon Research, Inc.; David Reid of the Te=^as Co.; Edward Grabowski, John A. Hufnagel, chairman, and Chartes hf
