Word: light
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Last week Harvard University announced development of a new apparatus for refining measurements of light's speed still further. It is compact enough to be housed in a small laboratory room and hallway, it eliminates friction as a source of error, and the measurement is automatic-that is, the human eye is not a factor (the Michelson crew aimed their beams by eye) and the clocking is done, in effect, by a photoelectric cell...
...principle is that of cutting a light beam up into a certain number of sections per second, then measuring the length of one section. This is like clocking a freight train when you know the length of the cars. If the cars are 30 feet long and you see that two of them pass a given point every second, you know the speed is 60 feet per second...
...train of light emitted from a 1,000-watt lamp is "sectioned" by a formidable-looking device called a standard frequency generator (see cut), also developed at Harvard, which alternately brightens and dims the beam 19,200,000 times a second. This is like nicking at regular but very close intervals a cable which is rapidly being paid off a drum. The light beam is split. One part is conducted over a long course (185 yd.), the other over a short course (about 2 yd.). Both are reflected back to a photoelectric cell. On the beam which has been over...
...technique was worked out by Texas-born, 30-year-old Physicist Wilmer C. Anderson who, on the basis of his experiments so far, believes he has reduced the margin of error in measuring light's enormous speed to two and one-half miles per second. When his program of measurements is completed, he expects to have the most accurate figure ever obtained for the velocity of the universe's fastest thing...
Chiefly interesting for their light on Morris' much-maligned business and political activities in France, the diaries are also notable for their account of the Terror, their Pepysian observations on political and social intrigue among the French upper crust. Even his enemies might enjoy Gouverneur Morris' formal candor in describing his tempestuous affair with the Comtesse de Flauhaut ("As I am heavy and plagued with a Head Ache Madame will not let me give her Pleasure, as it may injure my Health. This is Kind...