THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Soap and Detergent Supplies Ample, Says P&G Executive C & E N REPORTS:
American Management Association. M a r k e t i n g C o n f e r e n c e
N E W YORK.—In discussing measures to meet changed marketing conditions resulting from government controls, T. J. Wood, vice president of Procter and Gamble, Cincinnati, told the American Management Association here March 12 that there are ample supplies of soaps and detergents; in fact, enough to supply every consumer in the United States. At the moment, he said, they could see n o reason why this condition shoidd change. Speaking before a two-day marketing conference of the AM A at the Waldorf Astoria, Mr. Wood said that it was necessary during World War II to reduce the production of soaps, at times to 70% of the 1940-41 average. "Since Korea there have been intervals when shortages of certain brands existed. "We feel that these shortages have been brought about by excess buying on the part of some consumers and to a minor degree by wholesalers and retailers having increased their normal inventories." But whether shortages are brought about as a result of government controls, b y excessive purchases, or by maldistribution, the end result is the same, the speaker said. It is a sales-management problem and the treatment of the situation must be on the same principles. Mr. Wood then detailed the wartime steps that were taken in the instance of Procter and Gamble to ensure fair and equitable distribution of its soaps and detergents. Allocation is made to sales divisions based on previous shipments to each division. The division manager passes his allocations to district managers under his supervision. The latter allocates to the unit managers, and the unit manager allocates to the retail salesmen. Various factors are considered by the salesmen in supplying the consumer, such as past purchases, stocks, changes in community needs, and the like. A talk on how to sell to the Government was given before the AM A conference by Cmdr. Philip F. Ashler, chief of the Small Business Office, Munitions Board, Washington. Too many people expect 1950 to be like 1944, he said, and at this stage of our mobilization this is not true. During the peak year of 1944, Ashler said, the Department of Defense spent almost $100 billion for war materials and supplies. Today, even if Congress supplies all the funds sought, and there were reason to believe that it would, the total will approximate $42 billion. Of this, not more than 60 to 659c will actually be spent for materials and supplies. The speaker detailed policies and procedures enabling small business firms to obtain defense work. A "small business"
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is defined as a firm employing less than 500 persons. The recently organized Munitions Board Small Business Office in the Department of Defense serves as a point of contact, he said, for small busi-
nessmen w h o want to deal with the department. The AMA conference heard Paul M. Dollard, president of the Daystrom Corp., Olean, N. Y., analyze the many product and pricing questions currendy related to material shortages. In addition to Mr. Wood's talk noted above, changed marketing conditions were discussed by Fred D. Wilson, president of the Capehart-Farnsworth Corp., Fort Wayne, and by R. R. Zisette, general sales manager, SKF Industries, Philadelphia.
Physics Society Forms Chemical Physics Group C&EN
REPORTS: A m e r i c a n
Physical S o c i e t y , Division of C h e m i c a l
PITTSBURGH.-First organized recognition of the studies of chemical physics has been granted by the formation by the American Physical Society of a division devoted to this subject. Its first meeting was held here March 8 to 10. The first symposia sponsored by the new group were presented in conjunction with the Division of Solid State Physics whose members have closely allied interests. The need and desire for the new division was attested by the attendance at the first meeting, which exceeded 500, an estimated half of whom were chemists. The opinion seemed to be that there has been a long, sustained need for a forum for papers on submolecular phenomena which has not been afforded by existing organizations. Three inaugural addresses by J. H. VanVleck, vice president of the parent society, A. VonHippel, chairman of the division of solid state physics, and R. S. Mullikan, chairman of the new division, failed to define precisely the limits of interest of the Division of Chemical Physics. It was finally agreed that anything that might be accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Physics constituted appropriate material to be discussed before the new division. Falling within these precincts at the first meeting was a paper by G. E. Pake of Washington University which pointed out that the measurement of nuclear resonance frequencies has as yet been used only superficially in the study of molecular structure and submolecular motions, in solids. Most of the previous work in this field has been done with liquids and gases. Matter in these states gives a narrow resonance response on the oscilloscope screen, characteristic of the nucleus itself. In solids the resonance is determined by the local fields produced by the lattice environment of the nucleus. Thus it is possible to infer structural configurations directly from resonance data in the frequencies associated with nuclear magnetic relaxations or the transfer of energy from the nucleus to the lattice.
CHEMICAL
Physics
This method may prove particularly valuable in studies of hydrogen, lithium, beryllium, and fluorine whose lack of external electrons makes them unresponsive to x-ray diffraction analysis, according to Pake. The frequencies used in such studies are in the megacycle range. Another resonance phenomenon is observed in the 5 0 - to 100-kilocycle range. This absorption is associated with nuclear motions which, in the definite orientation of a crystal lattice, have a net field effect which spreads over a substantial resonance band. At the point of the breakdown of t h e lattice with increasing temperature t h e nuclear magnets are free to orient with the impressed field and give a very sharp resonance band. Pake reported that h e had plotted this point of apparent lattice breakdown against temperature and found it to occur in the order of 30° K. below the change in specific heat usually associated with the melting point. The author offered no explanation of this anomaly. Fhotoluminescence Two related papers from the Naval Research Laboratory cast some new light on t h e mechanism of photoluminescence in inorganic solids. C . C. Klick reported studies of activated phosphors at liquid helium temperatures which unexpectedly d i d not show a tendency to approach a line emission at absolute zero. Previous theories of luminescence have usually assumed that such a phenomenon "would be observed. Pure materials exhibiting an edge emission approach monochromatic luminescence at absolute zero. However, photoconducting activated phosphors revealed only slight narrowing and nonphotoconducting, activated phosphors showed no narrowing of emission band within the limits of experimental error. The author suggested that the behavior of nonphotoconducting phosphors may b e explained in terms of zero-vibrational energy of the luminescent center in its excited state. A different mechanism must be postu-
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ENGINEERING
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Lated for photoconducting phosphors. Klick suggested that it may be based upon distortion of the exciton and conduction levels near the luminescent centers. In any case, Klick said, future theories of luminescence must explain the phenomenon in terms of the independent luminescent centers since the energy level of the lattice environment does not appear to influence the luminescence. Klick's colleague, J. S. Schulman, carried the study into the functioning of luminescence "sensitizers" in conjunction with "activators." He found that this effect was also temperaturenindependent. Combining these data with the fact that absorption in these dual activated systems is characteristic of the "sensitizer" while the emission frequency is a property of the "activator," Schulman submitted that energy is transferred between the two impurities directly and does not pass through the parent lattice and does not employ excitons or other energy transfer media. This type of energy transfer has been previously defined as occurring between gas particles. Hydrogen Bond Mechanism Extended to Metals R. E. Rundle of Iowa State College told the meeting that the mechanism of hydrogen bridge bonds, previously investigated in connection with compounds involving third group metals, can be extended to many other metal compounds and actually is modified in a continuous series through all of the organometallics to the delocalized metal-to-metal bonds, which have recently been the subject of much study. In these cases all of the low energy orbitals of the metal atoms may be used for bonding purposes. According to Rundle the so-called halogen bridges actually result from the special properties of the metals associated with the halogens. At the official dinner of the division, J. C. Warner of Carnegie Institute of Technology told the assembled chemists and physicists h e detects signs that the Federal Government is about to progress from a phase of "organized confusion" to "just plain confusion" in regard to policies for the present emergency. He said that in view of this forward step it behooves the fundamental scientist to consider how he may best serve both science and his country at this time. Dr. Warner recommended particularly that university scientists remain o n the campuses to ensure the continuation of basic studies and the training o f new research scientists. If the talents o f such men are specifically needed for t h e military program he said that these m e n may serve as consultants, take a leave of absence for a specific assignment not to exceed o n e year, or supervise a research program at their universities. However, in following the last course Dr. Warner warned that the scientist must avoid "building a research empire" which requires extensive administrative attention and prevents his direct participation in the research activities. VOLUME
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1951
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