Temperature

By passing electric welding arcs through gases at high pressure, scientists have produced temperatures of 11,000DEG F., roughly the surface temperature of the sun. By alternately magnetizing and demagnetizing certain precooled salts, scientists have reached temperatures only a tiny fraction above absolute zero, -459.72DEG F. But hundreds of scientists assembled for a science congress in Canberra, Australia's capital, last week could do precisely nothing to alter a summer temperature of 108DEG in the shade.

Delegates wore linen suits, shorts, sandals and open shirts to a garden party at Parliament House--which reporters called the "most informal" in Australian history--but sweat ran down their faces. When a cooling shower fell on the party, the change was too much for Scientist Ernest Clayton Andrews, past president of the congress. He was found unconscious in a rain puddle, hospitalized.*

Clarioned Governor General Lord Gowrie: "If scientists and laymen carry from the conference a determination that they will be masters, not servants of science, they will have made a valuable contribution to the cause of civilization and world peace!"

* For a more serious Australian disaster, see p. 17.

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