New Gadgets

Swindletron. Drs. Luis W. Alvarez and John R. Woodyard of the University of California are building a new-type atom-smasher that they call a "swindletron" because it seems to get something for nothing. At one end of a 6-ft. vacuum tube, protons (hydrogen atoms stripped of their single electrons) are shot at comparatively low speed (30,000 volts) through a thin, uncharged disk of aluminum foil. While passing through it, many of them pick up two electrons, becoming negatively charged hydrogen atoms. Next, they are attracted to a second disk of foil that is charged positively at 500,000 volts. By the time they hit it, they have acquired 500,000 volts of energy. While passing through the foil, they lose their electrons. Now they are positively charged again, so the positive charge on the foil repels them violently, adding another 500,000 volts to their energy. When they reach the far end of the tube, they have 1,000,000 volts, although only half that voltage has been fed to the swindletron.

Motion Recorder. General Electric has built a machine control that remembers how to make a complicated part. When the device is hitched to a milling machine, a skilled operator, following ordinary specifications, makes the first part. Each motion of the machine is recorded on a magnetic tape. When the tape is "played back," the machine repeats the motions and turns out a second part just like the first. The machine does not have to stop for such nonproductive motions as tool-setting, so it works twice as fast as when it is worked by hand.

Machine Stethoscope. When the cutting tool of a metal-working machine bites into metal, it makes a sound whose loudness is proportionate to the amount of metal removed. Around this effect, Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co. has built a new "machine stethoscope." A small microphone measures the noise made by the tool, so that the machine operator can judge if it is cutting too deeply. M-H claims that it helps him work faster and with less fatigue.

Star Plotter. Astronomers think large thoughts, but astronomy also involves a tremendous amount of the dullest kind of drudgery. The most tedious job is figuring out the true position of stars from their swarming images on photographic plates. ,The Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University has developed an electronic machine to do most of this task. An operator guides a photoelectric cell to a star image on the plate. The cell automatically finds the center of the image and punches holes in an I.B.M. card. Then an electronic computer observes the holes in the card, figures out the true position of the star in the sky and prints its coordinates in a star catalogue.

Strong, Sensitive Scale. The most accurate chemist's scales, those that use quartz fibers as springs, can weigh only tiny quantities. Scales big enough to handle good-sized samples are not nearly as sensitive. Last week Dr. Alsoph H. Corwin of Johns Hopkins University told about a scale that he has developed which is both strong and sensitive. Its beam teeters on a finely polished knife edge of boron carbide (almost as hard as diamond), resting on the same material. The edge is so sharp that the pressure on its minute bearing surface is 25,000 Ibs. per sq. in. It must be handled with extraordinary care to keep this great force from blunting it. The scale will weigh loads as great as 20 gm. ( 2/3 oz.) to an accuracy of one part in 100 million. This means that while weighing an egg it can tell whether a particle of airborne dust has settled on it.

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