INDUSTRIAL dENCINEERING C H E MI S TRY
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Publidmd by the Ameriosn Chemioal looiety
HARRISON E. HOWE, Editor
EDITORIALS A Crusader
the World War. The Chemical Warfare Service, the American organic chemical industry, the dye tariff ITH the passing of Charles Holmes Herty, Amerifight, the Chemical Alliance, the Chemical Foundation, can chemistry has lost one who was so enthusiInc., and the A. C. S. News Service were among the astic that his whole career takes on the aspect of a series projects about which he was so enthusiastic. He of crusades. had a large share in interesting the late Francis P. We first remember Dr. Herty as the captain of the Garvan in the subject of chemistry and as editor he was baseball team, the Inorganics, who played the Organics able to influence a number of public men who then aided led by William J. Hale a t the Rochester meeting in in forwarding chemical projects and applying the views 1913. I t was styled a “Hale and He(a)rty” game. of the chemist to public policy. Dr. Herty would interrupt anything to attend a proOne of Dr. Herty’s most notable public services was fessional baseball game, and a t one of them incubated that in connection with the Allied Commission to disthe idea that led to the AMERICANCHEMICAL SOCIETY tribute stocks of German dyestuffs following the committee which drew up that important report on “The war. This required the skill of a diplomat, and Future Independence and Progress of American Medisecured for the American textile industry, over the cine in the Age of Chemistry.” Of course he was a strong objections of the Allies, the dyes which it had leader in athletics at the University of North Carolina, selected from German reparations stocks. Furtherand this activity as well as the inspiration of his teachmore a price agreement was also negotiated with the ing made him a favorite not only of the students in the German dye makers on nonreparations dyes which Department of Chemistry but of all those a t the unimade these available a t reasonable prices to the textile versity. manufacturers. The net result was that the needed But long before this Dr. Herty crusaded on behalf dyes were supplied in a way to assist rather than of the naval stores industry and devised the cup and hinder the development of the American synthetic orgutter system of turpentining which persists to this ganic chemical industry. day. It resulted in saving to the naval stores industry, Following his presidency of the Synthetic Organic reducing the evaporation of the turpentine and the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Dr. Herty becoloration of the rosin, diminished forest fires, and raised came chemical adviser to the Chemical Foundation, the quality of the lumber subsequently harvested. He Inc., and finally returned to his beloved Georgia, where delighted to tell of how one of his problems-the dishe believed the economic future depended on chemical placement of the gutters as the wounds of the trees in developments. Here he undertook and to a considerwhich they were inserted began to heal-was solved by able extent carried out a program in the early ’ ~ O ’ S , the fortunate accident of the left-handed negro using a overcoming many obstacles and handicaps and assisted right-handed ax and vice versa, when cutting the by such staunch friends as the Chemical Foundation, grooves in the trees. Another problem was the cost of Inc., and the Industrial Committee of Savannah. He making suficiently large cups. This was solved when succeeded in demonstrating the usefulness of southern he sneaked into a pottery one dark night and cut woods, notably pine, as a pulpwood and the effectivegrooves in the mold of a valuable flower-pot machine, ness of the sulfite process for treating it. Many of his thereby spoiling,it but saving the day for the turpentine friends believed that he had developed an essentially cups, with reduced costs of large flower pots as a bynew process and by publicizing that belief created ill product. will for the project among those who knew all the facts. Dr. Herty had demonstrated that by using As the third editor of INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING young trees many difficulties could be avoided, but he CHEMISTRY and the first to devote his entire time to developed no really new process nor did he ever claim the work, Dr. Herty became a crusader in molding to have done so. He was able as a crusader to call opinion generally on chemical questions arising out of
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attention again to the potential resources of the southland and to ways in which rapidly growing trees could be utilized. While the South is already experiencing as a by-product increased prosperity through the establishment of new pulp and paper mills, no mill has yet been put into commercial operation based on Dr. Herty’s researches. Dr. Herty’s many services to the AMERICANCHEMICAL SOCIETY are too well known to be related here. As the present editor’s immediate predecessor, he rendered him great assistance and gave cooperation in many ways that will long be remembered. Many of the editorial policies established by him have been followed with only such modifications as changes in time and procedures have made necessary. He filled a unique place in American chemistry and filled it well.
Visiting Firemen HIS designation doubtless owes its origin to those gay and festive occasions when volunteer firemen gathered in annual convention to demonstrate which crew could operate a hand pump with the greatest efficiency and maintain the most powerful stream of water, and incidentally have a rousing good time. This is still done to some extent, for there remain in the country more than 500,000 volunteer firemen in approximately 13,000 companies, as against 1200 paid fire departments. The fire department nearly everywhere is considerably closer to the average citizen than is the police department. However friendly, the policeman represents law and order and endeavors t o enforce different kinds of prohibitions, some of which are unwelcome. The fireman represents protection and performs a number of services in no way connected with his principal duties. Rescue squads are found generally in the fire departments. Their extensible ladders aid in the rescue of marooned cats, and many a housewife needing assistance of nearly any kind is more likely to call upon the neighboring fire station than to send for the cops. The conventions of fire chiefs and firemen undertake serious programs and bring together men of a high type, among whom we find an increasing percentage of college graduates. Courses in fire protection engineering have been given at the Armour Institute, a t the University of Maryland, and at Oklahoma A. & M.though this is an incomplete list. There is also a distinct chemical side that cannot be overstressed. Fire fighting has perforce become a matter of science. Without chemical information a fire department may cause great damage and loss of life by following its customary procedures. There was one case where a building was wrecked by an explosion which left twisted beams and girders. The natural thing to do was to use acetylene torches and get out the few men who were imprisoned. Fortunately, one of those in-
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jured was a technically trained man who was able to warn the crew that there was certain to be enough explosive gas in the wreckage to kill everybody if set off by the flame of the acetylene torch. More and more industries are using chemicals for various purposes, and unless the fire departments are told by these people what is in use grave results may occur. Therefore it is incumbent upon users of chemicals to let their fire departments know something of the hazards. Equipped as departments now are with protective masks, they are naturally called upon to make rescues of men overcome by toxic gases. But this often brings them into an atmosphere so deficient in oxygen as to be fatal. We have excellent detectors which can be relied upon to warn of explosive mixtures, but at present there is no quick, easy, and certain way of determining the absence of oxygen. The mask will protect the rescue squad from ordinary concentrations of practically all types of toxic gases, but it will not supply necessary oxygen, and an oxygen outfit may not be available and is likely in an emergency to be put to one side because of its weight and the difficulty of carrying it about. One thinks of the safety lamp used by miners, the possibility of carrying a cage of canaries, or the advice sometimes given to farmers, to lower a lighted lantern into a silo, but we must do better than that. Here then is an opportunity for some researcher to devise a simple apparatus or method which will be of great utility in many places, but most of all in the hands of the fire department.
Refugee Scientists
THE
growing practice of summarily dismissing scientists from their posts because of race prejudice presents a problem for many countries. In a discussion in the Chemical Age it is pointed out that in addition to humanitarian cmsiderations-which give rise to a wish to aid those in distress, there are some practical points involved. In many cases data of value in the development of science will be lost unless the work can be continued somewhere, a t least to the point of publication. In many cases the men involved are well trained and capable, so that what they are able to accomplish might well justify all that is involved in providing facilities not only for completing work in hand at the time of their expulsion but for undertaking numerous new projects. But while admission of these scientists to a country might have its advantages not alone for pure science but frequently for industry as well, the nationals of any country must be given preference in opportunities for exercising their own talents. Even temporary appointments have their hazards in view of the pressure likely t o be brought to bear to make them permanent. We begin to see how complicated is this refugee problem. It has its humanitarian aspects. Some phases affect the advance of pure science, others pro-
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gress in technology, still others the competition that would be afforded to individuals and the general effect on the employment situation. Those interested in finding a haven for the refugee should be required to give special consideration to all these possibilities.
Chemical Engineering Education T THE last meeting of the American Institute of A Chemical Engineers, Albert B. Newman, chairman of the Committee on Chemical Engineering Education, presented an exhaustive report which included some rather startling statistics. He stated that today more than 12,000 college students in the United States are preparing to enter the field of chemical engineering. This is second in numbers only to mechanical engineering and shows a remarkable, if not an alarming, increase in those who look upon chemical engineering as the most promising profession in the field of science and technology. Various explanations might be offered to account for the popularity of chemical engineering, but none of these is so important as the question of whether this volume of specially trained men can be absorbed upon graduation. Even allowing a mortality of 50 per cent along the way, places will have to be found for approximately three times the present total membership of the institute. It may be said at once that all of these men need not be employed as engineers, because a good course in chemical engineering fits a man for a variety of careers and his information need only be regarded as a tool or a stepping stone. Then, too, there will be a difference in the capacity of these graduates, and some will be obliged to be content with secondary places. It may easily be true that the future offers problems no more complex in chemical engineering than many other fields of work. However, this does not excuse those responsible from giving their fullest consideration to what it means to train large numbers of men in a specialty and allow them to look forward to preferment and, unhappily, also to disappointment. Whether chemical engineering should be a four-year course or one of six or seven years is another question. There is reason to believe that those who can take advanced training following a broad foundation will make the best progress and achieve the highest rewards. We can emphasize that, with increasing numbers choosing such a career, those responsible for training the chemical engineer can devise courses that are effective in preparing a man to achieve the utmost while at the same time acting as a selective process, leaving in the finishing group only those who have the best opportunity really to make good as chemical engineers. In addition, the teachers should be very frank with their students, telling those who, for one reason or another, seem unsuited t o the work, to make another choice early in
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meir academic life. This would help avoid the bitter disappointment that must come to a man who has done his best to acquire the prescribed education and still finds himself unemployable. We believe that those in the educational field must stiffen their courses to promote the selective process. Difficult problem courses early in the curriculum would be helpful, for they would aid in developing the students’ reasoning power to a degree infrequently found in many graduates. Too often emphasis has been placed on factual material, placing a premium upon memory a t the expense of reasoning. Consequently, many students graduating from so-called chemical engineering courses today, while good analysts and remembering many facts about processes, are at a loss when confronted with a new problem which requires fundamental reasoning, aided by a good grounding in physical chemistry, mathematics, and the principles of chemical engineering. More than that, the educator a t times must undertake the far more difficult task of frankly explaining why an individual cannot expect success in that particular field. Those who employ chemical engineers prefer the best-trained men they can find, even though that .mean a smaller number, than to be offered a large group less well prepared. The success of chemical engineering, as in so many other instances, carries with it far-reaching and pressing problems.
Suppressed Pa tents
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CANNOT remember when we first heard the charge that a revolutionary patent had been acquired by some industry for the sole purpose of suppressing it in order to maintain the market for some item then in production. The story is often told, and in most instances the narrator knows a man who is a friend of the friend who obtained such an invention. It has been repeated so often that many believe it. The other side of the shield says that not enough authentic instances of such procedure are known to justify the general statement that patents are so used. An effort is being made therefore to uncover the details of every single instance that is actually known to involve the suppression of a workable patent. We know of cases where patents are owned and not worked, for the reason that they are merely parts of a larger project in which the best of a group of patents is the one which is utilized. In other hands they would have a nuisance value and covering a minor point, prevent progress. There may be a patent or two owned and suppressed because the product is wholly unsatisfactory yet in unscrupulous hands might be produced for immediate profit with no real concern for the consumer’s interest. If you know and can supply the facts or indicate where they may be obtained to show that a given patent is being suppressed, then by all means disclose your in-
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formation to the chairman of the SOCIETY’S Committee on Patents or to Secretary Parsons. The AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY is glad to join with others in this honest and sincere effort t o learn the facts, and having them will take steps either to correct an evil or definitely scotch an old canard.
A Start in Life ECENTLY in a questionnaire a query was put as to the factor which had given young men the best and the poorest starts in life within the past ten years. One response was so constructive that we print it here.
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The Role of Pure Science
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DISCUSSING this subject before the American institute in New York, Ralph W. Gerard spoke of some of the earmarks of intelligent behavior. His three principal points were “the absence of superstition, the emancipation from fear of nature and the here-andnow prejudices of the group,” tolerance, and avoiding confusing the symbol with the thing for which it stands. These are thought-provoking points. Discussing the fist, Dr. Gerard points out that our present intellectual climate leaves much to be desired and that while we do not yet walk in the light of clear sky we can look back on the fogs of the past with some sense of progress. This he credits to science. As for the second, we will all admit that decisions should not be reached until after due instruction in the evaluation of the facts pro and con. Action, while not always correct, is rational in the light of the evidence, and since action generates new evidence it is automatically self-correcting. “Intellectual honesty is the motif of science.” In elaborating the thought that one must not confuse the symbols with the things which they symbolize, it was pointed out that words themselves stand only as symbols which are imperfect and shifting representations with changing meanings. For example, the adage “the exception proves the rule,” originally used the word 66 proves” to mean “tests,” whereas today the word has the meaning “demonstrates.” The antidote is science. Science then, the speaker maintained, is tested and organized knowledge, gleaned and tried with the aid of its powerful method. Its process is absorption, explanation, experimentation, and rejection or occasional confirmation. Conklin has summed the case up admirably:
The young man whom I know who has made the best start in life during the past ten years is now about 32 years old. He was originally endowed with a good set of brains, a great deal of curiosity, tremendous energy, and a willingness to do any kind of work which needed to be done. If he has any outstanding characteristics it is broad-mindedness in the matter of doing work. He doesn’t stop and ask whether it is his job or someone else’s ’ob. He merely senses that it needs to be done and he does it. d e also is very broad-minded in the matter of acquiring mental equipment. Although originally trained in a liberal arts college, he dug out a great deal of technical and professional material. When he went to a distinctly professional school devoted primarily to chemical engineering, he still remained broadminded and acquired large amounts of information which had no direct bearing on his professional efforts. He kept working all the time. He is really interested in work. He does not do it as a laborer but as a conquerer. As far as I know, he made no effort to find his first job. Jobs came pursuing him. He did not use personal influence, not only because such a procedure would be entirely foreign to him, but because it was entirely unnecessary. Before he was 25 people were bidding for his services. He never had to try to get an employer to hear his story. The employers came and begged him to tell them the story. While he was always good in his studies, there were many men who were brighter. I do not believe there were any who worked harder or more intelligently, however. One of the poorest starts I have ever known was made by a man who was considerably brighter than the man just mentioned. I don’t believe he worked so hard and certainly he did not work so intelligently. He received hls bachelor’s degree a t 19 and his doctor’s degree at 21 from one of the very best institutions in the country. He was a bit too young to accept a position corresponding to his education. Consequently, he accepted a job which was a cross between more study and real work. He was so much brighter than the people with whom he came in contact that he was not able to accomplish very much. He soon left this place and took what should have been an actual job. The only trouble was that he still knew so much more than the men with whom he was associated that he soon had to move on to another one. I watched him doing this for ten years. At each job he learned a little about the important subject of human engineering, which had been entirely neglected in his earlier training. When he was about 32 he finally landed a job in which he is doing well and which is about the kind he could have expected to have at the age of 26 or 27 if he had just obtained his doctor’s degree and knew how to get along with people as well as with facts. This young man’s difficulties were largely that. he was too bright, did not have to work very hard, and certainly never learned to work intelligently. This involves a recognition of the fact that everything in our modern world is of the nature of team play. There is no room for the lone genius, no matter how bright he may be. Most of the young men whom I have known who have made a poor start owe their failures to lack of ability to get along with y p l e , those on their own level, those above them, and those elow them.
January, 1939, issue we propose to call attention to the outstanding achievements of 1938 in the field applied chemistry. These will be included under “This Year We Honor,” and we are desirous of having suggested those new products and processes which have originated in research and which have become commercial successes during the current year. We shall be grateful for any assistance, to the end that no.worth-while piece of work be overlooked.
We would be glad to receive the answers of others to this interesting question, believing that the more we can tell the youth of today about how to make a good start, the better it will be.
A man’s intellect is judged by his ability to disagree without being disagreeable.
As an educational discipline there are other studies (than science) that distinguish so sharply truths from error, evidence from opinion, reason from emotion; none that teach a greater reverence for truth nor inspire more laborious and persistent search for it. Great is philosophy, for it is the synthesis of all knowledge, but if it is true philosophy it must be built upon science which is tested knowledge.
Accomplishments of 1938
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