Table of contents

Information about appointments and awards, meetings, and member services from the Institute of Physics.

The first two objects to be recognized as quasars were 3C48 and 3C273. Both had previously been known as radio sources; indeed the prefix 3C indicates that they were listed in the third Cambridge Catalogue.

'Science policy' may be briefly defined as policy for the professional labour force engaged in research and experimental development work. This 'R and D industry' employs about 300 000 people in Britain and costs about £900 m. (1967).

Fuel cells, the modern 'philosopher's stone', are striving for practical realization, but with what success ? Unlike the philosopher's stone, fuel cells are based on sound basic principles, but the solution of their technological difficulties has been relatively slow to appear despite the explosion of work which started one and a half decades ago and still continues today.

Mr A.J. Philpot, F Inst P, whose death occurred on 18 March 1969, was born on 18 June 1889, in Histon, Cambridge, the son of the Rev. Thomas Philpot. He was educated at Taunton School.

An instrument for the detailed examination of photographs, to enhance contrasts and yield information not at all obvious in the original film or print, has been introduced into Europe by Joyce, Loebl and Co. of Gateshead. It is made by an associate US company, Technical Operations, and is called an image quantizer.

Annual reports for the year 1968 have recently been published from the SRC high energy physics laboratories—Rutherford and Daresbury. These make encouraging reading for anyone interested in the wellbeing of physics at British universities.

The British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) was born from the recent Chemical and Biological Warfare Campaign which in turn originated from the CBW Conference sponsored by the J.D. Bernal Peace Library. It now boasts some 400 members and its inaugural conference took place at Easter.

A programme of research costing over £70 000 is to be carried out during the next two years by a collaborative team including research students drawn from the Plasma Physics Group at Imperial College and the Magneto-plasmadynamic Section of International Research and Development Company Ltd of Newcastle. Approximately £62 000 is being provided by a grant from the Science Research Council, the remainder being found by the industrial partner.

A report just published for 1967–1968 reviews the contribution made to space research by British scientists from 15 university groups and 8 Government establishments. In this period there were significant developments in the rockets available for carrying scientific payloads.

The present state of discussion on possible amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Society of Chemical Industry is summarized in the following statement made by the presidents of the CS and SCI and published in Chemistry in Britain: "There have been several meetings between the presidents of the CS, the RIC and the SCI and three meetings of a working party, consisting of five representatives of each of the three bodies, under the chairmanship of Sir James Taylor, to examine the desirability and the practicability of amalgamation".

Prof. A.F. Brown, FInstP, of the City University, London, has just completed his Scottish Tour giving lectures on 'Senses and sensibility' to senior pupils in six centres in Scotland from Aberdeen to Dumfries. He had a van load of equipment with many interesting demonstrations showing how our human senses are extended by radar and ultrasonics.

The Council of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, as reported in IEE News, has decided to investigate in detail the possibility of providing an individual study service for IEE members and others by means of correspondence courses. The intention of the courses would be to provide means of informing and instructing engineers who, because of their location or other factors, are unable to make use of the facilities which the IEE already provides through meetings, conferences and vacation schools.

At the Annual General Meeting of the Australian Institute of Physics in February Mr A.F.A. Harper, FInstP, was installed as the new AIP President for 1969–70 (see photograph on p. 257). Mr Harper is a Senior Principal Research Scientist of the CSIRO Division of Physics of the National Standards Laboratory at Sydney, and has previously been Honorary Secretary and Vice-President of the AIP.

The Scottish Branch, which was formed on 22 April 1944, celebrated its 25th Anniversary at a dinner held at Glasgow University on 16 May. After a visit to Barr and Stroud, a lecture by Mr E. R. Davies, Director of Research, Kodak Ltd, who gave the inaugural lecture of the branch in 1944, and following the AGM, the dinner was held in the staff club of Glasgow University.

A broadly based programme to increase the yield from ocean resources, predict and enhance control of natural phenomena and improve the quality of the marine environment, is proposed in a report prepared by the US National Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Engineering. The report, intended to delineate the possible scientific and engineering content of US participation in an international decade of ocean exploration, steers away from proposing a search for immediately exploitable resources and instead urges that "the objectives should be a broad general survey to provide background for the later detailed investigations of resources and the implementation of carefully selected scientific programmes designed to increase basic understanding of the earth and the sea".

On 6 June 1969, with the sun high in the sky, a party of Midland Branch members arrived at the delightful manor type residence composing part of the Fulmer Research Institute at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. Some members had travelled over 100 miles and were not disappointed by the programme of work which was exhibited and described during the day long visit.

A new collaborative venture, to be known as the Instrument Systems Centre, has been jointly initiated by the City University, London, and the British Scientific Instrument Research Association (Sira). Based at the City University, the venture will formulate and execute projects for advanced research and postgraduate students.

Elections to Membership

The recent report regarding the changes in Membership structure (Physics Bulletin April 1969 p. 138) makes no mention of the situation in which the Licentiate Members will find themselves. I am convinced that if more senior Members of the Institute were aware of the Licentiates' plight, the proposed changes would have been considered more carefully.

In the June issue of Physics Bulletin (p. 251), Prof. C.G. Wynne protested against recent proposals concerning future recruitment to the grade of membership now named Fellow of The Physical Society. He considered the proposals to be contrary to the spirit and intention of the amalgamation of The Physical Society and The Institute of Physics in 1960.

Before commenting on a recent proposal by J.M. Marks and J.C. Fisher (Physics Bulletin January 1969 p. 28) to introduce a new unit, the purie, attention should be drawn to an ambiguity in the existing definition of the curie. According to Report 11 of the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU), the curie is expressed in terms of 'nuclear transformations'.

I should like to add some further comments to the correspondence on the role of physics in colleges of further education. The number of students specializing in physics, either at HNC level or in the elective physics option in the ONC sciences, remains disproportionately small compared to those taking, say, the National Certificate in engineering.

The phenomenon noticed by Mr P.J. Soilleux (Physics Bulletin May 1969 p. 201) has indeed been observed before; as early as 1840 in fact when W.G. Armstrong (later Lord Armstrong of engineering fame, but at that time a practising Newcastle solicitor) reported in the Philosophical Magazine that electricity was generated when steam leaked from the safety valve of a steam engine boiler. Faraday (1843b) subsequently investigated the phenomenon in characteristic detail and correctly explained that "the electricity is due entirely to the friction of the particles of water which the steam carried forward against the surrounding solid matter"; further experiments in which a jet of moist air was blown across a block of ice also demonstrated the generation of electricity, again with water droplets as the charge carriers.

My letter under the above heading in the May 1969 issue of Physics Bulletin (p. 201) has resulted in many direct verbal or written comments which reveal two facets, which I had not considered. Firstly, members of the Civil Service are not permitted to reply in the press and this puts them at an unfair disadvantage relative to others, because the other side of the coin may thus remain hidden to readers of Physics Bulletin.