Chemists

The Humpty-Dumpty world of matter has had a great fall in the past two decades. But all the king's chemists and physicists become annually more adroit at putting Humpty together again, a bigger and better fellow than ever before. Several hundred chemists convened last week in Philadelphia for the Golden Jubilee of the American Chemical Society (TIME, Sept. 13) and it was upon putting-together (synthesis) that much of their talk ran.

Synthetic Italy. There was Prince Piero Ginori Conti of Italy, who described the taming of waterfalls and hot volcanic springs in the Apennines to produce the power to make the electricity that now supplies Italy with acetic acid without apples (vinegar); wood alcohol from coal instead of trees; camphor, ammonia, formaldehyde, artificial silk for black shirts, from their chemical constituents.

Supermen. In Back to Methuselah Dramatist George Bernard Shaw predicted that in 30,000 years man would be born from an egg, a postadolescent, with a mind capable of reaching the modern mind's highest development in four years, after which he would graduate into being an "Ancient," a Yogi-like creature with no low passions or appetites, not even the vulgar craving for sleep. To Irenee du Pont, vice chairman of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 30,000 years seems a long time to wait for creative evolution to reach this point, and in the course of his remarks on the dyestuff industry he strayed into the future to propose that chemists could and should discover catalytic chemicals that would counteract the muscle poisons which we now have to sleep off. Instead of going to bed for the night, one would have a shot in the arm or a pink pill, change his shirt and bid every one "Good Night" with a cheery morning smile. Other chemicals--not to call them drugs--might be evolved for stimulating mental activity without robbing Peter to pay Paul, as do Cocaine, alcohol, etc. Thus, out of the test tube, a synthetic superman, "a short cut to the millennium."

Berthelot. Early chapters in the synthesis of Humpty-Dumpty were rehearsed by Prof. Paul Sabatier, faculty dean of Toulouse University, who described the personality and performances of Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907) under whom he had worked at the College de France. Berthelot it was who first prepared "organic" compounds (containing the inevitable constituent of living matter, carbon) from their constituent elements: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon. It seemed then as if Chemist Berthelot had made life from dead matter though nowadays the things he made, benzene, alcohol, etc., are regarded more calmly. (Next year France will observe the centennial of Berthelot's birth in a "house of chemistry" now abuilding in Paris.)

Rubber. An international group of researchers agreed that synthetic rubber is not yet. The report of Dr. Richard Weilfi of Germany was most significant: during the War, Germany needed rubber badly, tried many formulas including one that starts from starch. Potatoes and corn were too scarce for food to permit using this one. Another formula, in coal and lime, was followed to produce 2,350 tons of synthetic rubber. But the product cost five dollars a pound; automobile tires made of it wore out after 1,500 miles; for inner tubes it was useless.

Selective breeding of plants that will grow out of the tropics, such as the wild guayule shrub of Texas and Mexico was recommended to U. S. manufacturers now endangered by Britain's rubber monopoly. Guayule does not contain rubber as latex (milky sap) but as small particles among its fibres. The shrub must be cut down and pulverized to extract these particles, less than a pound to each bush. None the less, President George H. Carnahan of the Continental Rubber Co., showed that guayule plantations totaling only 1,000 sq. mi. would supply 25% of this country's annual crude rubber requirements. Californians are planting guayule.

Intra-Atomic Energy. If matter could be sent out of existence and made to reappear as energy, unlimited power would be on tap. Instead of one royal phenomenon like radium, there would be a grand democracy of matter in which the homeliest substances would lie ready to perform potent miracles. It would be something for nothing with a vengeance. In his presidential address, Dr. James F. Norris of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Society's chief, dwelt upon this subject most optimistically. The initial energy required to alter atomic arrangements and in so doing release new energy of high intensity has been found in the X-ray tube. Synthetic fuels and lighting gases might be but one result, on a modest scale. Sugar from formaldehyde is already another. The economic implications of the power to transmute base metals would be tremendous. The identification and destruction of specific disease molecules are not unthinkable.

Hottest Flame. Dr. Irving Langmuir of the General Electric Company described his discovery of a flame hotter than hydrogen burning in oxygen (oxy-hydrogen). He made atomic hydrogen burn in an atmosphere of molecular hydrogen. His hydrogen blowtorch melted tungsten wire like an icicle, indicating that its heat was at least 7,000DEG F. Playing on a sheet of chrome steel the flame left molten pools behind it. Significance: steel girders could be welded silently instead of noisily riveted;* the welds would not (as when an oxyhydrogen flame is used) be oxidized and thus weakened, they would be annealing instead. This is important in joining aluminum, magnesium and other light metals.) Alloy metals, too refractory to work with by present methods, could be used for building, thus conserving the world's iron ore.

* Hotter than any flame is the electric arc already adapted to girder-welding (TIME, Aug. 30).