Word: macneills
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...thermoelectric sextant, using infra-red rays, invented by Paul Humphrey Macneil. The infra-red rays are in the long-wave end of the electromagnetic spectrum. They are really heat waves, capable of penetrating clouds. The Macneil Sextant has a curved reflector that collects and potently focuses infra-red rays on a thermocouple, two pieces of metal which when heated even one-millionth of 1° give off a tiny flow of electricity. This flow is enormously amplified, measured by a galvanometer. When the curved reflector is pointed directly at the sun, the flow of electricity is greatest and the navigator...
...face a mile away. It not only registers heat waves, but differences of temperature in itself. At night, or in a fog. the electric eye sweeps the horizon. When it encounters an iceberg it loses heat. This loss of heat is recorded, the position of the iceberg determined. Now Macneil is trying to make it record even the infra-red rays from the stars, to chart a ship's position at night...
Inventor Macneil began his pursuit of infra-red rays as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. During the War he considered how to apply his researches to a nautical instrument, fixed on the sextant. Because no U. S. workmen could make the delicate apparatus required, he went to Holland. In February 1931 he guided the Mauretania across the Atlantic with his thermoelectric sextant, which was later adopted by the British Admiralty. Last week he announced he was ready to begin commercial production. A ship will need but one thermoelectric sextant which will cost about $2,000 instead...
Four leaves of absence have been granted to take effect during the next academic year. Felix Frankfurter, Byrne Professor of Administrative Law, will be on leave of absence during the second half of next year. Professor Sayre MacNeil, of the Law School, will be on leave during the first half of the year, while Francis T. Spaulding, associate professor of Education, has been granted leave for the second half...
Another demonstration of infra-red use occurred last week on the roof of England's Croydon Airdrome control tower. There Paul Humphrey MacNeil of Huntington, L. I. showed his infra-red sextant. Navigators locate their position at sea or in the air by determining how high the sun is above the horizon. They "shoot the sun" through the eyepiece of a sextant. If the day is cloudy, they cannot see the sun, although they may know its approximate location. The MacNeil sextant is connected with an amplifier sensitive to the sun's infra-red rays. Those rays...