Post on 01-Aug-2018
Who could ask foranything less?
Rugged amd small. That's a Bendixelectron multiplier for you. Howrugged? It's impervious to ambientatmosphere. You can even wash itwith common, grit-free cleaners.That's how tough the glass field anddynode strip coatings are.How sensitive? To the extreme
ends of the electromagnetic spec-trum. Including the hard ultravioletrange unattainable by other detec-tors. Tungsten cathodes, unaffectedby visible and near-ultraviolet radi-ation, allow broad use as a window-less, solar-blind detector for farultraviolet and soft X-rays. Detectionand counting of photons, ions,neutral particles and nuclear radia-tion, too.
Spectral response? 1500 A tobelow 2 A, with current gain reach-ing 108. Rise time exceeds 5 nano-seconds. Maximum dark current is1 picoamp.
Other models are available, too.All rugged, and as compact as canbe. And that makes them naturalsfor rocket probes.Power supply? Our matching
Bendix Model 1122 is solid state forassured constant voltage and mini-mum maintenance.More questions? Write: Scientific
Instruments and Vacuum Division,The Bendix Corporation, 3625Hauck Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45241.Or phone (513) 772-1600.
velopment, a rocket based upon a metalheat exchanger-reactor was also investi-gated. In this design heat conductionwas canceled by opposing gas convec-tion (which is the same means by whicha cold bunsen burner maintains a hotflame). By this strategy gas tempera-tures up to and including the meltingpoint of tungsten (3600°K) were reli-ably achieved without risk of failure.A sizable fraction of the output of gaswas atomic hydrogen, and the powerdensity in the exchanger, as compared tothat in the flame of an atomic hydrogentorch, yielded a very favorable power-to-weight ratio. Exchanger moduleswere run at full power and heat for aslong as 2 hours and restarted repeatedlyhundreds of times in 1/10 secondwithout visible deterioration. The prob-lem of thermal neutron capture, whichSpence mentions, proved far less for-midable than had been feared; actualrocket designs which were submittedto nuclear mock up became critical withvery modest uranium loadings (1). Inbrief, feasibility had been widely dem-onstrated for a device with perform-ance far beyond the potential of graph-ite. Design was rapidly maturing andconstruction of the first model had al-ready started when we were given adirective to use the Kiwi-A nozzle. Thismeant cutting back the hydrogen flowto 3 kilograms per second. At thisminiscule flow rate, the buffering effectof gas convection was gone, and theentire project was scrapped for thesingle reason that the design wouldnot tolerate an unrealistically lowv pow-er. Had Spence's criteria been well ap-preciated at the time, the decisionwould have beeni different. As an oldspace buff, I can daydreanm quite wist-fully on what the scientific fruits of apost-Apollo program might have been.
BRUCE KNIGHTRockefeller Un7iversity,Newt, York 10021
Reference
1. B. W. Knight, Nurcl. Sci. EDig. 19, 393 (1964).
Federal Funds MeanFederal Control
Abelson's editorial (17 May, p. 721)about federal support of universitieswas apropos concerning reductions infederal funds. It suggests how a merethreat of reduced funds can enslavethe recipient. But it seems to me hemissed the major point about federal
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control. Obtaining funds by means ofthe power to tax is appealing, to besure, as against our having to sell ourprograms to willing "buyers" as volun-tary purchasers or supporters. But wemust never forget that the overridingpoint comes from the highest judiciary(law) of the land:It is hardly lack of due process for thegovernment to regullte that which it sub-sidizes. Uiiitecd States Sluprenme Couri tWickar-d v. Filburnl, 317 U.S. 111, p. 131,October 1942.
One wonders what the course offinance for education would now be ifthis ruling decision had been on thedesk of every university administratorcontinuously over the past quarter cen-tury. It is a stern discipline for all whoyearn for easy money from this sourceand at the same time hope to be freefrom political control.
F. A. HARPERInstitlute for Hum)lanie Stutdies, Intc.,1134 Cranie Str-eet, Menlo Park,Californiia 94025
Orwellian Parody
My letter (15 Mar.) was written asa parody. Several of my friends andcolleagues understood it as such, with-out prompting from me. Did Herz(Letters, 24 May)?My parody was inspired by another
parody which, like the sentence I ob-jected to, was a paraphrase of Scripture.In his essay "Politics and the Englishlanguage," George Orwell used anexam ple to show what he felt waswrong with the writing of his day. Heobtained it by translating Ecclesiastes9:11 as follows:
I retLirned and saw under the sun, thatthe race is not to the swift, nor the battleto the strong, neither yet bread to thewise, nor yet riches to men of under-standing, nor yet favour to men of skill;but time and chance happeneth to them all.
into what he called "modern Englishof the worst sort":
Objective consideration of contemporaryphenomena compels the conclusion thtsuLccess or failure in competitive activitiesexhibits no tendency to be commensturatewith innate capacity, but that a consider-able element of the unpredictable must in-variably be taken into account.
Clearly Orwell's essay applies as wellto science as it does to politics.
KENNETH MANLYDepartmiienit of Biology,Massach usetts Inistitlute of Technzology,Cams1bridge 02139
SCIENCE VOL. 161