new kind of scientific expedition has~been announced by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. In I938 and I939 the company will sponsor ten research physicists in exploring the fields of pure science. Five such explorers, to be known as Westinghouse Research Fellows, will be chosen the first year from the ranks of those having the equivalent of a doctor's degree in physics, chemical physics, or physical metallurgy and an additional five will be named later. The plan, as explained by Dr. L. W. CHUBB, director of the laboratories, provides for a continuing group of ten fellowships. The research work will be under the direction of DR. E. U. CONDON, formerly associate professor of physics at Princeton University. Though the Westinghouse fellowships are not designed to develop specific improvements or make concrete contributions in the practical application of electricity, Dr. Condon stated that: "Each widening of the horizon opens up new-possibilities of technical advance although it is not usually clear at first what these possibilities may be. Past experience has shown that nearly all discoveries in pure science have sooner or later been of value.
Westinghouse is supporting work in pure science in order that this work may be accelerated." Both Dr. Chubb and Dr. Condon agreed that the world's scientific advance would have been considerably more rapid in the past had the usual 2o-year lag between a fundamental discovery and its application to industrial requirements been shortened by a closer link between research and industry. Improved electric lights, for example were made possible by the exact knowledge of what laws an electron obeys. These same laws were responsible for electronic tubes and control devices. It is planned to confine the Westinghouse work to fields for which the laboratories are well equipped, in particular, nuclear physics, electric conduction in gases, ferromagnetism, dielectrics, thermionics, semiconductors, elastic and plastic properties of metals and crystal structure.
R. H. O.
Neoprene Chloroprene
Rubber.--At the annual meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit there was placed on display by the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., forty automobile applications of neoprene. They included carburetor hose, gas tank filler hose, vacuum gear shift hose, horn wire insulation, water pump seals, dust and grease and oil seals, oil pan gasket, radiator cap seals, and diaphragms for vacuum-operated spark, choke, and starter switch controls. R. H.O.