April, 1924
I N D U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Who is Our Public? OME scientists who see no advantage in telling the story of chemical research and the achievements resulting therefrom to the people at large conceive the public to be only a group whose interest does not appeal to them as worth the trouble involved in securing it. But there are numerous examples to prove that one never knows just who his public may be. It is related that Johns Hopkins, after a lengthy discussion following a lecture of an educator on the necessity of improving facilities for higher education in the United States, routed out his attorney at two o’clock in the morning to alter his will. As a result, the university and the hospital bearing his name were created. The Journal of Paleography owed its maintenance to a similar set of circumstances where a man of means unknown t o those interested in the project became its benefactor following a popular address. A large sum of money was left for the use of the Franklin Institute by a man unknown t o the officials but who had become interested in the work of the institute by attendance upon its lectures as an inconspicuous member of the audience. I n our own circles it will be remembered that funds to make possible the Journal of Physical Chemistry on an international basis were offered following a reference to the work of the physical journal a t one of the dinners of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. It is the creation of a broad, sympathetic public opinion appreciative of science which constitutes one of the greatest factors in the adequate support of research in pure science and the application of these results to industry.
Weights and Measures ECEiNTLY there has been introduced in the Senate a bill, No. 2070, “to rectify, coordinate and decimalize the weights and measures of the United States.” This bill presents an apparent effort to satisfy the adherents of both the English and metric systems and to set up a new order of things, which seems to us to be unnecessary and confusing, and to present all the disadvantages of a hybrid. The bill provides that the foot shall be retained as a linear base for weights and measures and defines the ounce as the weight of the cube of the tenth of a foot of water a t the maximum density. The fluid ounce has the volume of the cube of the tenth of a foot, thus producing one thousand ounces to the cubic foot. This changes the weight of the present avoirdupois ounce by half a grain. To carry the decimal system further, the foot is divided into ten digits, one hundred lines, and one thousand points, while it is proposed to divide the ounoe into ten drams, one hundred carats, and one thousand mites. The pint is defined as the volume of the pound weight of water and therefore one-tenth of the British imperial gallon. Nine cubic inches were added to the Winchester bushel to obtain a bushel of 2160 cubic inches or 1.25 cubic feet. It is argued that such a system would not affect the busliel weight of any commodity as fixed by law or custom, orprohibit the use of measures not defined by the act. No change is made in linear measures and the slight changes required lor the rectification of the ounce, fluid ounce, pint, and bushel are said to be within the tolerances at present allowed for these measures and are negligible in trade and contracts. This bill is designed t o provide an American decimal system cif weights and measures but based on the English system, and is interesting particularly because it, in effect, acknowledges the necessity of improving upon the English system, which is found unsatisfactory by so many groups and
.
335
in so many industries. Yet we fail to see why it is thought necessary to set up a new decimal system when in the metric system we have not only all the advantages of a decimal system, but those that are derived from established procedure and accepted and used by a majority of the countries. The metric system is already familiar to many in the United States, and is rapidly winning adherents because of its accuracy and adaptation to all work of precision.
Accounts of Progress OR two years an autumn number of INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY has been largely devoted to accounts of progress in various fields of pure and applied science. We expect to offer a similar number in the fall of 1924. There are still some who wonder why space is given merely to reviews. The unsolicited comment of one of our leading research directors, made to the author of a summary published last September, expresses so clearly the value of such papers that we reprint the letter here, both to answer those who wonder about the utility of these reviews and to encourage those who make it possible for us to perform this service for chemistry. I stole a while away-i. e., I did not go to the laboratory this morning-and I have just read your article (and others) in the September number of the JOURNAL on INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERThis is to thank you on my behalf. I think ING CHEMISTRY. those general subject papers are all good, are all useful, and conform to the aims of the AMERICANCHEMICAL SOCIETY.I say this because possibly some editor asked you to write your article and possibly also you demurred and possibly you also thought it wouldn’t be highly appreciated, etc. Now to me those papers, which I merely assume were begged by some one, are of more use to the rising young chemist than most of our most beloved papers. Why? Because they tell the truth in and between the lines; we don’t know much, we apparently know much less now than we used to, because we see what an infinity of unknown there is right a t our chemical elbows, and this makes the chemist’s calling the greatest sport that highly developed mentality could devise. We just know enough to distinguish oil from the hole in the ground from which it comes, we don’t know more about catalysis than that cats are not always necessary in it, and when i t comes to corrosion only a few.of us know that there are several theories (among them the electrolytic) which are not worth the scrap paper they are now idly preserved upon. But, Hell to Betsy! The utility of going ahead and doing enough so that we think we know, is more exciting and valuable than ever-so let’s go1 The symposium of papers in this number is wonderful and about perfect, to my mind, because they all say the same thing, “we don’t know.” They all show the same fact, “it is fun to work,” and they show how economical, but not cheap, optimism really is. If I had time I’d write a letter to every one of those fellows whose articles appeared this month, and even, I think, to the printer. The photos with the papers make a first-class addiment. I like it.
Praise from Abroad E THINK we can be pardoned for referring to the editorial in Chimie et Industrie for December, 1923. This editorial is devoted to a discussion of the Prize Essay Contest, and while it speaks in high terms of an enterprise t o which we are devoting a great deal of time, it also compliments the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYby giving it such extended and favorable comment in a preferred position. That the activities of the SOCIETY should have this attention on the part of our foreign friends is in itself high commendation, and but bears out the statement that has frequently been made-namely, that the SOCIETYand the work which it has accomplished, as well as that in hand, are better known and appreciated abroad than in our own country. In what we do and consider, it behooves us to have this in mind.
